THROUGH WORLDS AND TIME

am i familiar with it?

do i like the fandom itself?

who’s my favorite character?

aside from the multitude of remixes floating around that make it sound a million times better (definitely not using this as an excuse to drop some of my favorites: x, x, x, x), it's just... such a haunting song, both in how it sounds and in the actual narrative context of the game.

To give some context; this song plays in E1M8, the last level in Episode 1 of the first Doom game. By this point, you (Doomguy, yet to become the Doom Slayer) have been wading knee-deep in the dead, fighting across Phobos as the last remaining survivor in the wake of the Helltide. Your allies and companions are either dead or walking among the undead; the only things to give you company are the mutilated corpses of the innocent and the demons hellbent on taking your soul.

The only way out is through.

To me the song that plays in this level is haunting because of how somber it sounds. It's a song of despair; that despite all your effort, all the horrors you've gunned down, all the terrified courage and strength you've mustered up in the face of Hell itself, you're Doomed. It's inevitable. You cannot avoid this fate no matter how hard you fight.

Because when you step onto that teleporter, well...

A Hindu lamentation for a dead son: “My lion, my arrow, my blood, my body, my soul, my third eye!  Gone, gone, gone!“  From Hand-book of Bible Manners and Customs by James Midwinter Freeman, 1874