Would You Still Love Me If I Was The Official Kamen Rider Ryuki Chess Pcs (12pcs) By MegaHouse

Mundane Design Detail of Digital Devil Saga: Tag Rings

(Spoilers for both DDS + DDS2.)

I have a tendency to look way too deep into little details of character designs in media, and when it comes to DDS where uniform designs are common, it gets even more fun for me. One of the things that first stood out was tag rings; the Junkyard invention that is introduced briefly and very early in the game as identifiable objects used simultaneously as trackers for downloadable mantras and can also act as digital wallets. I always wondered though, how much more they can represent for a character's actual design rather than just being a game tool for logging progress.

Rings on different fingers (and hands) represent different ideas on how we wish to present ourselves; these ideas can change from culture to culture, and in observing these differences, I looked both at general Western culture and of course, Hinduism. I was able to find more information in Western cultures with more commonalities. However, in Hinduism, by looking into mudras, you'll find rings on each finger can still hold different meanings. The middle finger is "ego", the pinky is "illusion", the ring finger is "karma". The index finger is Jiva-Atman - the individual soul or self. The thumb is Paramatman - the universal, eternal soul.

And if you've noticed, most individuals of the Junkyard wear their tag rings on their middle finger (on their left hand). In Western culture, the middle finger, similar to "ego" in Hinduism, represents "individuality". And hey, what do you know? That's a pretty important theme brought up later on.

The Samsara Tunnels scene with Lupa is actually what drove me to research further into this. Lupa removes his tag ring before performing an inevitable act of self-sacrifice, and at first, I thought it meant he was giving up his individuality. Until I noticed that no, Lupa wears his ring on his index finger on his right hand, rather than his middle finger on his left hand like almost everyone else. In Western culture, the index finger on the right hand instead represents the "potential for leadership". Fitting, for the Leader of the Wolves, who has offered his own head to the dominating tribe of the Embryon.

And then he hands it to Gale - who slips it onto his left hand next to his other ring, and he puts it on his index. And what does that represent? Comradery. Ohhhhhhhhh man. Let's go, gay subtext!!!

Irrelevant comment: (The funny thing is Lupa's ring literally does not pop up on his hand until the camera focuses on his hand and then it disappears. For the rest of the scene and the rest of the game and DDS2 it is gone. I don't know if that was an intentional choice - I doubt it - perhaps the animators didn't want to make a whole other Gale model with the two rings. I like to think he kept the ring...)

Moving onto DDS2, and Serph sells his tag ring at the Mad Mart to make some cash. Nobody else sells their rings. With the hacking disk, they are no longer needed, so it seems everyone just keeps it for sentiments. Serph himself also wears his ring on his middle finger, so was it a story choice for him to give it away - to represent him giving up his individuality? Of course, maybe not immediately, but eventually, Serph's individuality blends with another soul - being Sera's - in order to become Seraph. And no, they do not wear any rings, because neither Sera nor Serph did at the point of fusing.

Yeah.

Some additional points:

Cielo doesn't wear his tag ring as a ring, he wears it as a necklace. Similar to Lupa and his layers of necklaces with several tag rings. I'm not sure what that means - usually, necklaces with rings represent vows, most commonly found for promise rings. They can also represent deceased loved ones. Which is quite heartbreaking when you think about Lupa's necklaces...

Generally, the right hand for rings is the "action" hand while the left is the "thinking" hand.

If I ever find more information and more opportunities to extend this drabble, I will. I'm not sure how interesting this essay is for others, but some friends were interested in hearing it. I really do wonder how much thought was put into this design aspect, and if anyone has their own knowledge to bring to the table, I'd love to hear it.

My boy magolor for the ask thing

deceptive wizard time

favorite thing about them - ngl, his personality is a joy. even when he's a huge jerk, he's incredibly entertaining, one of the best written characters in the entire series

least favorite thing about them - id like him to like. actually play a Role in his re-appearances instead of having pointless cameos because he's popular. c'mon hal, you literally brought him back from the dead, use him.

favorite line - "You are such a cool dude!"

brOTP - uh. Well it's canonical fact that he really wants to be friends with Kirby, so let's go with that. I imagine he at least used to be buddies with Marx at some point.

OTP - Marxochilly gang ngl

nOTP - idk honestly? though people that ship him with kirby make me feel uncomfortable

random headcanon - the reason he returned to popstar specifically is that despite him having questionable moral compass, he STARTED to genuinely feel companionship with kirby, dedede, meta knight and bandana dee and wanted to make amends. like his star allies guest star description says, he wants to be friends... and conquer the universe together. he might be shady, but he's hungry for positive social interaction.

unpopular opinion - while i'm all for magolor redemption, people woobify him a bit too much a bit too often. like he did some genuinely shitty things in the past, he literally tried to conquer the universe, he backstabbed people that genuinely trusted him. he should be held accountable because his current attempts at making amends were not the greatest. (gifting theme park is not a redemption)

song i associate with them - "under my control"

favorite picture of them -

Galaxia's origins are very concerning, actually.

I'm pretty sure that by this point in time, everyone knows the basic gist of what Galaxia is: a sword. Meta Knight's sword, specifically.

Here's the thing though... despite at first not thinking much of it, the more I look into this, the stranger it gets, and I'm not about to keep the bizarre amount of information I've found on this specific topic to myself. Here we go...

The first time we saw Galaxia was in (the non-canon) Kirby Right Back at Ya! (though that's pretty common knowledge). In it, Galaxia was a "sacred" (or "holy", depending on how you translate it) sword forged by an ancient civilization (wait a second...), then to be stolen by NME and recovered by Meta Knight on his infamous mission with his (now deceased) friend Garlude. It is later explained that only those "worthy" can wield it without perishing, and though it is never explained what makes one "worthy", we've only ever seen Meta Knight and Kirby do it in the anime. It's partially implied that Garlude's daughter Sirica can also use it to an extent (though not completely?) but this is never explained and is probably not that important anyhow, so I'll skim over it for now.

The next time we get substantial Galaxia information is in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, in which Meta Knight once again lets Kirby borrow his sword. Interestingly, it's not called "Galaxia", but rather "Master Sword". It looks a bit different too, so we can't be completely sure that it's the same one, but we can't assume it isn't either.

The thing that really caught my attention was the prefix "Master". In case you hadn't already caught on, this name (and the appearance of the sword, for that matter) is eerily reminiscent of the Master Crown, and it gets even stranger when you look at Magolor's (the wielder of the Master Crown) Ultra Swords in his Soul fight:

Oh.

This is the part where things start to fall into place. Does this mean that Galaxia is a Sword equivalent of sorts to the Master Crown? Does this mean that it too is controlled by Dark Matter? Does this mean that it could also potentially ruin Meta Knight's body at will and give him that oddly unsettling eyeball-mouth look? Does this mean that (dare I say it?) Galaxia ties back to the Ancients?

Wait... let's return to that Dark Matter thought for a moment. Void Termina also uses Ultra Swords, so do they change appearance in the Soul Melter version of the fight?

They're Galaxia-looking again! Void Termina also uses a mimic of the Master Crown in its battle, so that solidifies the theory that both artifacts might be connected somehow, perhaps through the Ancients or the Heroes of Yore (it would tie back to KRBAY's mentions of "worthiness" and "ancient civilizations" after all).

Great! It seems we have a really solid theory as to the origin of Galaxia, and all of our evidence is fitting together quite nicely! I sure do hope nothing incredibly confusing shows up out of nowhere and blows the entirety of these "clues" out of the water!

And so:

Apparently, Morpho Knight's sword briefly gains this appearance during one of its attacks. How does this tie into Galaxia and Meta Knight, you ask?

...I have no clue. It's Morpho Knight, what did you expect?

Conclusion: Oh no.

It reminds of gabriel from drakengard 3 more tbh

You see the xenomorph orochi?

Yes, it's very much an 8-headed serpent.

this sequence of images is so mystical to me. it's like a prey animal noticing you

dedede's stance on nfts

Berdly and Magolor are the same guy with varying levels of pathetic-ness and they NEED to hang out