#roy kafe

Okay so we're introduced to the video with a document being written by Ada regarding Emil's mental illness and her efforts to treat it. What's interesting about it is that it matches Emil's Experiment File, down to the number of 0-1-2. The dosage or Reagent 3 (implicitly a form of Delphi) is administered by Ada, which supports her First Letter that she had some understanding of Orpheus offering her Delphi to treat Emil, albeit without withheld information (she says Orpheus visited her, but clearly mistook Roy for Orpheus, so my suspicion is Roy has been pretending to be Orpheus for longer than Game 0). The medical file is written by Ada, which means there were two files on Emil in Game 0, one written by Ada, one presumably by Orpheus (based off the TOR Teaser).

When Ada administers the dosage of Delphi to Emil, we can see a bottle of Mnemosyne in the background, implying she may be attempting to use Mnemosyne to help him forget his past, and that it is Reagent 3. We know from Orpheus' own experiences and, now, Emil's reaction in the video, this did not work. Instead, it appears to worsen a dissociation within Emil's memories, causing him to forget the people around him in his traumatic memories, but not what happened itself. His first memory is that of grabbing a piece of bread while begging in the street, people gathering around him like the stray "dog" he would soon be dehumanized as.

We cut to another shot of a medical file, this one labeled 10. The dosage administration has changed to injection. Reagent 3 (possibly Mnemosyne) is now combined with Reagent 4, which appears to be, based off the blurry symbol on the syringe, Mnemosyne, Siren, or Hydra. Emil, however, is clearly suffering, in spite Ada's optimistic interjection he's made progress, with another shot to Emil being forced into the dog ring, the faces of the audience redacted by the drug, but not the nightmares.

Emil hoarsely, hesitantly tells Ada that he thinks something is "me."

We cut again to experiment 37, with intravenous injection via an IV, exclusively of Reagent 4. Emil now has various medical devices strapped to him. Ada reassures him that their paradise will have no treatments, no drugs, no suffering. Survive this and it will be over. But as we reassure him, we cut to the Delphi seeping into his brain and one final memory of being thrown to the dogs.

Suddenly, the memories bleed. The child Emil's face glares at the dogs in anger and, in the editing power of Delphi, this anger bleeds into the past memories too. This appears to reference the "memory supplementation" experiment mentioned in Emil's Third Letter. There is no longer fear but seething rage at what happened, even if he can no longer recall the details. In the material, Emil rips off his medical devices, smashes the Delphi, and then the camera. It cuts to him "glitching" into his Hunter's Humanoid Form before cutting out.

We are no longer in the film, but in the Darkwoods. Helena, Ada, and none other than Survivor Galatea run away from Herztier's Humanoid Form, which shifts in size and stance. He begins to run on all fours, before leaping and in a seamless transition, turn into a wolf, snarling at the screen.

Then, two black-gloved hands load a hunter's rifle. We know what Roy Kafe will do. Ada screams in despair.

But instead of a shotgun, we cut to Emil's hands being freed of shackles, the chains dropping into a field of lilies outside a brightly-lit White Sand, appearing to be a callback to Ada's Tenth Deduction, where they were briefly happy, in the sun, and surrounded by flowers. Ada's hands offer Emil a flower and he looks at her in surprise, before his body dissolves into marble dust.

First off, I want to talk about Emil's design as a werewolf. Emil's is in the "middle" of the werewolf spectrum from "an angry person who bites a lot of people" to "a regular wolf." The clown I have summoned is far more knowledgeable about the creatures (I focus on a different kind of mythical creature), but these are among the more sympathetic kinds of werewolves. They lean less into the uncanny valley than humanistic werewolves, but are less animalistic than their truly lupine brethren. Enough humanity remains in the physical form to scare us and attract us.

It appears that closer to Luchino than Nightmare, Emil's Herztier form represents freedom from the burdens placed upon him. All animalistic Hunters represent dehumanization, but Evil Reptilian and now Herztier appear to represent willing dehumanization. An embrace of dehumanization and rejection of humanity to cope with the pain of trauma. Even if it ended with being shot, for one moment he was in control of his life. Emil's "inner soul" isn't that of an animal due to trauma and if I hear that one more time I'm gonna skin someone alive and dance around their flayed corpse while holding their skin suit like a long piece of gelatin.

Something I think I think is often left out in conversations about Herztier is Emil's ability to choose. Emil is either infantilized or demonized depending on whether someone wants to focus on his sweet aspects or his mental illness. Likewise, Ada is either demonized or turned into a martyr because god forbid someone acknowledges she and Emil have agency.

Something that supports this interpretation is the deviation of Herztier's Wolf Form from his sprite model. His sprite model has his jaw restrained, forced open by spreaders. In Game Zero, however, his jaw is free, and his snarl is one by choice. We can also see that his cinematic model has grey pupils, adding a cognitive element to his design. He no longer looks primal, but a thinking, feeling creature.

Emil, in spite wanting to get better, was also aware. I think, to some degree, as Herztier shows, he was tired. This was hinted at in the Qixi Festival, but we now see that fear replaced with tired anger. Mental illness isn't a beautiful thing. There's no moral to misery. It is, and it is exhausting. Loved ones, even when they care, can accidentally worsen it, because sometimes the love comes from the idea that there will be a point where one is no longer mentally ill. Ada is ahead of her time, trying to move away from antiquated therapies, but she's also not perfect, focusing on getting Emil to a point without mental illness. It also ties into the theme of the dog whistle and how psychologists can inadvertently hurt their patients through seeking treatments that superficially treat symptoms, but internally worsen the illness. We can see how, as much as Emil loves Ada and Ada loves Emil, ableism can cause the strain that Delphi, his own mental struggles, and Helena and Galatea's intervention exasperate. And Emil's previous lore has supported this. In spite Orpheus' ableist view of Emil, we can see he was tormented not only by his mental illness, but how he reacts to it in his Fifth and Sixth Deductions. The forgetting of his "once-human identity" is a matter of somewhat willing dissociation, rather than being completely helpless to an external neurological threat. It adds an interesting element to his "guilty" feelings towards Ada after he has a dissociative, perhaps traumatic episode on his third Christmas with Ada (Emil Second Letter). It's possible that this guilt wasn't solely for being out of control, but rather he did have some control. Sometimes, mental spirals are horrifying even to oneself. Other times, depending on the individual, there's almost a relieving element to engaging in one's symptom, even if that "relief" is not feeling significant fear by trying to deny it.

As the Delphi courses through him, Emil appears to reach a conclusion that he's tired of being human and the trauma it entails, with the transformation into a beast not being a regression but an embrace, as Luchino would later do. Either he or Roy likely wrote Ada's Fourth Letter, begging someone to be pure of heart and end the games, and if not, then no one will ever achieve their desires. This ties into pre-Enlightenment ideas that mental illness could potentially be something revelatory, granting insight the sane could never. English and Latin associated mental illness with the moon with lunacy, where we can see the werewolf connection to Emil and his relationship to his illness. Emil had previously seen himself as an extension of Ada (Emil Eight & Ninth Deductions), something Ada was trying to get him out of thinking, but had limited and somewhat biased abilities to reverse.

If he was forced to be treated like a beast, then isn't there some freedom in choosing to become one instead? Prove them right on your own terms.

I also want to discuss how Emil's disorder has significant dissociative elements. Emil is diagnosed with anxiety, OCD, hallucinations, nightmares, and "dementia" (Ada Tenth Deduction). What we see however, with Emil often losing communication, flashing back to traumatic events, appears to be PTSD with significant dissociative elements, something that as a historic psychologist, Ada has a limited understanding of. These appear to be worsened by Delphi rather than resolved. Although some of it appears to be intentional based off Emil's Third Letter, part of it appears to be unexpected, which is supported by other characters' reactions to Delphi. The dissociation worsens but the trauma remains. This supports the idea that Emil is another Orpheus parallel and ties into both Alice and Orpheus' experiences with Delphi. We know that Alice was kept trapped by Vilhelm (and Sam Bourbon) using Mnemosyne, keeping her disoriented until someone (presumably someone aiding Orpheus, or himself if the Australia comment is retconned) altered her medication, allowing her to run away (Alice First Letter). Orpheus himself relies on Delphi as an addictive substance to cope with his trauma, even as it withers away the memories, presumably as a negative interaction with his dissociation. And, as with previous parallels to himself, Orpheus fails to notice this. He presumes Emil's behavior in Game 0 was an extension of seeing himself as a "tool," one that Galatea exploited and was shot by Roy. He doesn't see Emil the person who can feel and choose. He only sees the illness.

We get a preview of the incident where Roy shot Emil, but we now have context that we previously lacked. Superficially, Emil simply "went insane," a victim of Galatea's meddling and Helena interfering with his medication (Emil Fourth Letter). But now, we see that it was affected by an anger Emil willingly felt. He felt hurt by strangers, by people he loved, and was at that mental point where one wants others to feel the pain coursing through his nervous system. There was an intentional element that is forgotten by both the characters and the fandom, one that is now undeniably shown.

This is reflected in the transformation Emil has to his Wolf Form. Rather than an agonizing, An American Werewolf in London-like transformation, it's seamless, a trait associated with willing werewolves. In addition to the terror is the power, even with the self-loathing, that comes with embracing his dehumanization.

Curiously, Galatea is shown running from Herztier, in spite having been disabled by the time she arrived at Oletus Manor in previous texts. It's possible that this doesn't reflect Divergence, with the non-diegetic reasoning being the marketing team wanted to show off Galatea. But what if it is diegetic? It's possible she was even retconned to be paralyzed during Game 0, with her needing a wheelchair in her next Game. If the theory Galatea's Survivor Swap is being saved for Game One is true, the change between her Survivor and Hunter forms could be highlighted. It's possible that Emil himself may have been retconned to paralyze Galatea. We don't know what happens now.

But we know what happens next.

Loading that famous rifle is a pair of black-gloved hands, belonging to none other than Roy Kafe. I am curious as to whether Roy will incorporate the shotgun into his Survivor kit, possibly as a Support or Rescuer. Cryptic Notes shows it's clearly possible. Martha in shambles. The black gloves are interesting since at some points of Ashes of Memory, Orpheus is shown wearing gloves that might be black, such as when he drugs Alice.

Considering the Novelist is depicted wearing white gloves, this makes me curious as to whether it's a trait regarding the practice, with Orpheus or Roy wearing black gloves when getting physical, or it is indicative of Identity, with a different identity of Orpheus, possibly Nightmare, possible a third identity, using black gloves while the Novelist wears white. Given it is the Novelist identity most associated with Roy Kafe, it is an interesting development.

Ada pausing from running away to scream in despair for Emil highlights the downside of "embracing painful symptoms as freedom." Drastic efforts done in significant pain, such as suicide, can provide a final "win" against a world that feels unbearable, but they also hurt loved ones, who watch someone they love die. Ada truly loved Emil and flawed as it was, did want the best for him. She was denied the ability to be at the forefront of medical science due to her gender, she was denied acceptance due to her deviation from the standards at the time, and in spite her efforts to find new discoveries, to help, she couldn't. Instead she's left with grief, picking up the broken pieces and reflecting on how she got here. I can't help but wonder whether she let Galatea kill her in the end. Fittingly, it is implied her sculptor was that of a bird, like the bird imprisoned in marble Galatea once sculpted for Orpheus.

Emil dissolving into the marble dust reflects Galatea incorporating him into a statue, presumably that of a dog passed off her portrait (Galatea Second Letter, Galatea Fifth Portrait). However, there's still some ambiguity of whether Emil was dead when that happened. It's possible some of the noise coming from the statue wasn't solely Galatea's chisel, but Emil himself. That also makes me curious about how much of Herztier was a Delphi hallucination, due to the implication that Delphi allows people to glimpse the supernatural hidden from us, which would align with Emil's revelatory themes and the appearance of the Darkwoods. Orpheus is terrible at noticing the supernatural, after all.