If Caleb were to make a friend....

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Drakan

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Post by Drakan »

Well... if you think about it, the innocents messed with caleb too, in a way. I mean, come on, they were running around in nothing but shorts for god's sake. How dare they, taunting Caleb and challenging his sexuality. of course they were messing with him. And so they needed a good shooting...

/Lame Joke #39
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Hellen
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Post by Hellen »

So, innocents are running in the boxers and thus are ghey? That’s a very interesting parallel between how the “ghey question” is solved in Postal and in Blood.
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Post by leileilol »

red arremer of course

that, and patrick stewart
Drakan

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Post by Drakan »

Hellen wrote:So, innocents are running in the boxers and thus are ghey? That’s a very interesting parallel between how the “ghey question” is solved in Postal and in Blood.
Hmmmmm...

Maybe they're poor people who can't afford clothes...
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RedFanatic
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Post by RedFanatic »

hellen said
Mr. Red, tell me, when you play Blood do you leave any survivors?
i gotta be honest unless im low on health or they block me, most of the
time i just let em run i might watch if a zombie is hacking the smeg
out of one but on the whole if they don't bother me I don't bother them
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scar3crow
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Post by scar3crow »

Caleb was a "merciless gunfighter". However this implies that he was involved in a system of challenges, duels, and conflicts. He didnt just kill. He killed those who got in his way, did not show mercy during this time, and reaped a satisfaction in so violently overcoming obstacles, whether they were alive or not.

Now this does not imply that he loves killing generically outright. Though he may possess a misanthropic worldview, he is also practical and knows it would not work in broad application.

Caleb is what you could call relentless capitalist who deals only in the short term. He looks at profit and problems, and acts without fear of repudiation. However all of this was before and up to the mere age of 17, mentally still a child. He is still easily moulded at this point, but has the power of murder. His taste for cruensseasrjit is based upon power and the acquiring of an easier path. Ophelia refined that capability. With this refinement he stops being an opportunistic gunfighter and enters into the realm of a murderer, only with the calculation that most lunatic's lack to any great degree. His insanity as a decoration of character rests within our personal belief of what is sanity - which usually consists with a general respect of human life, even for selfish reasons since we all possess that trait. We appeal to the democracy of the desperately sentient whereas he is a member of the oligarchy of the armed insane.

Caleb being evil is drawn from his departure of a shared respect of life in some form. This is a trait though that you may find manifesting more quietly in many many people, in fact I would wager a signifigant percentage of the world population displays such an attribution, though they express it through several degrees of seperation or less violent means.

However we have canonical evidence that Caleb has emotions beyond personal gain. True the legend that is the prayaNavita consisanyanchetaah rudsceleratus is one of persequor persequi persecutus by all means, but it is not simply a defense of wounds from past, but that of others. Upon arriving at the Altar of Stone to face off with the envious Cheogh Caleb spies the corpse of Ophelia, and is outraged and ridden with emotion, to the point of demanding the presence of his foe. This is not the behaviour of someone who is strictly opportunistic or maniacal, this is someone who is defending another they found sacred. And holding another as sacred is contrary for such a worldview. Regardless of how twisted, murderous, and rife with evil Caleb may be, in that moment he weeps for Ophelia, and those tears shall lubricate the barrels of his shotgun.

In most cases his anger can be excused for outrage at the betrayal and his burial, the shifting of power, but the Altar of Stone is a fundamental period in this story. It gives a Z axis to what is at a glance a mere 2 dimensional world. Naturally the majority of his life is centered in forwarding himself whether it be through the pain of others or not. But you have the Altar of Stone to illustrate a certain honor system.

In the Lair of Shial we are given another canonical display of Caleb's character, however this one is easily exegetical in interpretation. Read into that as you wish. In the ending sequence you see him consuming the flesh of a fallen comrade, which could be portrayed merely as gruesome, but is left neutral. It is neither celebrated nor condemned. There is the possibility of it being a behaviour signifying Caleb's conquest over that which defeated Ishmael and thus a victory over him, however knowing Ishmael's bizarre character, it could almost be an honorable thing to do. This one is very open, as opposed to the rather iron clad case of Ophelia. Gabrielle leaves very little information to the behavior of Caleb in Blood itself.

Caleb is not 100% evil, for he is still human. Even after becoming a murderer, being sacrificed, and resurrected, you still see a heart in him, though pumping venom more then blood itself, it still beats beyond the welfare of his self.

Cheogh was beyond an obstacle in his path to Tchernobog, he was a blasphemer to the sacred person in his life that is Ophelia.
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Hellen
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Post by Hellen »

Wow, that was a SPEECH! I guess you study psychology or stuff like that.

I just wonder what the reason is for everyone to believe that Ishmael was killed by Shial and Gabriel(la) was killed by Cerberus…
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scar3crow
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Post by scar3crow »

If I remember correctly in the intro you see Shial descend upon Ishmael specifically and carry him off, Cheogh embraces Ophelia from behind, you merely see charred remains and then Cerberus, and Caleb falls into a void.

But my memory may be incorrect on this.
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Hellen
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Post by Hellen »

bloodhlp.txt wrote:The Way of All Flesh will bring you to the aerie of Cheogh, the stone gargoyle, where you will seek your beloved Ophelia. Even Death May Die marks your quest for Gabriel, who is held in the lair of Shial, the Mother of Spiders. Farewell to Arms will lead you before Cerberus, who guards your comrade Ishmael.
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scar3crow
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Post by scar3crow »

I so wish I still had Blood installed or could find the cds... Then I could at least try to get it working on XP...

Hrmm, well then, either my memory is wrong (one of you who can play the game still can confirm this) or the text file is inconsistent with what was portrayed in the intro.

Eitherway I stand by my assessment, simply because such cannibalistic acts could be seen almost as a respecting ritual in Ishmael or Gabrielle's world view. But also works just as well from the perspective of Caleb as the conqueror through his path to wake the dreaming god.
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Hellen
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Post by Hellen »

I can explain, I guess:
In Blood you pick up life essences which increase your HP. “Every life that you have taken has made you stronger”. Remember?
Gabriel(la), the strongest of the Chosen, possesses more life power and resistance than anyone of them. How could Caleb miss the opportunity to take this power for his own? Besides, I think Caleb and Gabe/Gabby have never been too friendly towards each other.
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scar3crow
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Post by scar3crow »

I dont think Gabrielle has ever been friendly...

That makes sense and works further within the game experience, almost harkening back to the images I received internally from the Beast mode descriptions. However I dont know if it was done maliciously with the gain of power or capitalistically for the gain of power. If anyone has any clues at all on a general disposition between Caleb and Gabrielle... Basically whether or not it was likely one would try to kill the other short of a direct opposition without the willingness of one to move.


This might be slightly Lo-Wang-ish in style, but it would be cool if the game gave you bonuses for eating the heart while the victim is alive. You have to get the enemy down to 10% or less of their health and then get in melee range and hit Use to attempt to penetrate the chest cavity quickly enough. Then on consuming your health can raise above 100 from that and you get some type of bonus based upon what enemy it was (speed, enhanced normal, fire, spirit damage), perhaps a more exotic bonus such as 120 seconds of invisibility if you can perform it on a Phantasm, or all attacks do 50% extra firedamage for 30 seconds if you perform it on a Hell Hound.

Now this has really sidetracked, I apologise. I just love the Blood universe and delving into it.
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Post by RedFanatic »

Excellant descriptions scarecrow thats exactly how i wish i could
have put it :D

as for the eating of the chosen i think that was all part of the plan
because in the story it says you'll need all the chosen in order to
defeat techernobog and since they all died caleb just came up with
ways to ingest their energy, he ate the heart of one of them
exploded cerberus in order to drink the blood (i assume cerberus ate who ever he took)
the only flaw in this point is that he diden't consume any part of ophelia but perhaps the burning of her was some how similar
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scar3crow
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Post by scar3crow »

Another fair point RedFanatic, it follows quite well with Tchernobog's little speech in the Hall of Epiphany, so at that point cannibalism for vitality is a more common thing.

I dont see the burning of Ophelia as a flaw, but a further revelation that he does in fact hold her sacred, enough that he prefers to keep her intact as a person and not use her to gain power, instead running on the power of desiring revenge for her.

This could make for an interesting mod, though itd require a higher monster count and some roaming ai... but the Cultists and such consume corpses as they find them, and thus get more powerful with each one. As they get strong enough they will seek out lesser monsters and kill them simply for the sake of consumption. Eventually they could become quite formidable. It could be very fun, and it would be quite the visual to enter a room to see a hooded cultists kneeling on the ground, hunched over tearing into a zombie or such, or an innocent even more likely. That would be a way to do it without the map descending into 100% chaos, more innocents about.
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Hellen
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Post by Hellen »

scar3crow wrote: Cultists and such consume corpses as they find them, and thus get more powerful with each one.
That’s the first ridiculous idea from you. Caleb is doing it ‘cause he’s undead. Cultists are still among the living (even if someone’s calling ‘em “skeletons in hoods”).
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