Greetings, all, and welcome to another episode of Caricature Development!
Well, March is still in full swing, or at least it was at the time this video was uploaded,
so you know what that means: a love for Ireland is in the air!
(Or should I say "in the Eire"?)
So while everyone gets together to celebrate all things Irish, either for a single day
or for the whole month, I might as well offer my own 2 Euro cents by delving into the interactive
medium and how it has taken in Irish legends.
Celtic mythologies aren't exactly a common pool for inspiration as far as video games
are concerned, but as always, that doesn't mean that exceptions can't be ruled out
entirely.
In particular, the one Irish myth that seems to be one of the most frequently retold is
that of the Dullahan.
But what exactly is a Dullahan?
What do Irish legends have to say about it?
And how have video games put their own creative spin on these spirits?
Are they accurate to the original tales?
Those are all questions I intend to answer today.
I'm the Kitsune Hawk, and today, we're heading to the Emerald Isle of Ireland to
talk about the decapitated bringers of death, the Dullahan, and how video games have retold
the old Celtic legends!
I hope you're ready to take notes, because this is Caricature Development!
Now what exactly is a Dullahan?
Well, they have their origins in Irish mythology, and the shortest way I could describe them
is "an Irish Grim Reaper".
They're one of many varieties of Dark Fairy, meaning that they appeared on their own accord,
and often with malicious intent.
As the legends go, the Dullahan appears after sunset on certain days, usually holidays and
feast days, riding across the Irish countryside on a black horse.
The Dullahan was a creature on a mission, for it would approach the residences of specific
people and then call out their names.
As soon as the Dullahan uttered a person's name, the victim's soul left their body
and departed for the afterlife.
Unlike the Banshee, another harbinger of death in Irish folklore, the Dullahan would always
come without warning, and any gate, no matter how tightly locked, would open before the
Dullahan.
They had only one weakness, and that was a deep fear of gold, disappearing at the sight
of it.
Don't think you were automatically safe because you could drive off a single Dullahan;
unlike the Grim Reaper, the Irish believed that multiple Dullahan existed and that their
fear of gold would only work for so long, as nobody could escape death forever.
The Dullahan were known for their unique appearance, because they had no head on their shoulders,
their necks either being a stump of severed flesh or an open flame.
Instead, a Dullahan carried its head in its arms, often holding it high, so that it could
see a wider view of the Irish countryside, even during the darkest of nights.
In their other hand, the Dullahan would often carry a whip made from human spinal cords.
Dullahan could be male or female, but either way, their head was often described to have
a wide grin and shifting eyes, while also having the color and consistency of molding
cheese.
As out-of-the-ordinary as they looked, though, making eye contact with a Dullahan was often
a very bad idea, as they would react to observers with one of three punishments: either they'd
throw a bucket of blood in your face, they'd knock you blind in one eye using their whip,
or they'd call your name and take your soul with them as they continued their journey.
The exact origins of the Dullahan are… muddy, at best.
One of the most common theories is that they might be a divine punishment from the Pagan
fertility god Crom Dubh,
who often accepted sacrifices in the form of decapitations.
As the theory goes, when Christianity was brought to Ireland, the angered and abandoned
god took his revenge on the people of Ireland by sending the Dullahan, a decapitated figure,
to make the sacrifices instead.
Otherwise, origin stories of the Dullahan vary by locale to locale in Ireland.
Chances are, this image might seem familiar to some of you, because the Dullahan myth
was a primary source of inspiration for the popular American author Washington Irving,
who wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in 1820.
Set in Tarrytown, New York in the year 1790, the story establishes the area as being host
to a number of ghosts and other spirits, the most notable being the Headless Horseman,
a German soldier who fought in the American Revolution, only to have his head blown off
by a stray cannonball in the middle of battle.
Only his body was buried, so every Halloween night, he rises from the dead, appearing as
a decapitated cavalryman, angrily searching the area of Sleepy Hollow for his long lost
head.
And while the idea of a headless horseman shows up in other cultures, such as Germanic,
Scottish, and Indian folklore, the medium of video games seems to have taken most passionately
to the Irish Dullahan and Washington Irving's vengeful soldier.
So how have video games taken the Dullahan mythos and run with it?
Easily the most infamous example comes from Golden Sun: The Lost Age, where a Dullahan
appears as a notoriously difficult optional boss guarding the game's most powerful summon.
Golden Sun's interpretation of a Dullahan is that of a giant knight in purple armor,
with a flame in place of a head, though its actual head is seemingly nowhere to be found.
However, as if in response to that, the Dullahan would make a return appearance in Golden Sun:
Dark Dawn, where it now holds up a shield with a face on it.
In both appearances, this Dullahan is capable of calling death spirits to haunt your party
members, as well as turn its sword into a lightning whip, following the mythos quite
well.
Konami's Castlevania series has featured the Dullahan on several occasions, depicting
them as headless skeletal enemies, decapitated knights on horseback, or large, animated suits
of armor missing helmets and bearing shields with engraved faces.
Sometimes they fight alongside their zombie-like decapitated heads, but more often, their heads
are absent entirely.
Similar to the Castlevania interpretation, Dragon Quest VIII introduces an enemy class
based on the Dullahan; they're depicted as headless suits of armor, carrying a flail
and a shield that makes their facial expressions for them.
In Capcom's Devil May Cry series, enemies named after and based on Dullahan appear in
the third installment, Dante's Awakening.
Here, they are portrayed as headless suits of armor carrying a sword and spiked shield,
and are fully invincible unless the player attacks the red gem embedded into the spine
of their armor.
Nobody said putting down Death would be easy, after all.
Vagrant Story features a Dullahan as an early-game boss, and similar to Devil May Cry 3's depiction,
it's an animated suit of armor with a sword, and it's invincible unless attacked at its
prime weak spot; in this case, that would be the straps connecting the two sections
of its armor.
During Overwatch's Halloween-themed "Night of Terror" event, the characters Reinhardt
and Reaper both received new skins partially based on the Dullahan.
With regards to Reinhardt's "Coldhardt" skin, he definitely looks the part of the
Dullahan, with the ethereal blue flame erupting from his neck, but it's hard to exactly
tell if his head is encased in the flames, or if the fire is forming in the shape of
Reinhardt's head.
Reaper's Halloween skin, however, is based more on the image of a Headless Horseman,
using a jack-o-lantern for a head instead of carrying his detached head on his person,
which honestly would have been more in-character for Reaper.
Speaking of headless horsemen, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has ghosts of decapitated cavalry
sometimes found wandering around at night, though they are of no threat to the player,
and cannot be harmed.
With its setting in revolutionary America, it should come as a surprise to none that
Assassin's Creed III decided to reference the literature of Washington Irving, as there's
a small easter egg where Conner can investigate a claimed sighting of the Headless Horseman.
He will, however, run away before the player can do anything but catch a glimpse of him.
The Headless Horseman even shows up again in Assassin's Creed: Rogue, where it's
possible to fight it, though it can only be damaged by attacking the pumpkin on his tombstone.
Starting in 2010 and continuing since, Team Fortress 2 offers its own spoof of the Headless
Horseman once Halloween rolls around.
Appearing on the Mann Manor map, the aptly-named Horseless Headless Horsemann will wander about
the map, using his axe to chop down any players in his path.
It's fully possible to attack and kill the specter, too, and doing so will certainly…
reap you some nice cosmetics and crafting items!
League of Legends gave its centaur champion Hecarim a skin based on the Headless Horseman,
complete with a jack-o-lantern floating above where his neck would be.
Amusingly, in this sense, Hecarim would be a literal headless horse-man.
There's a bit of an odd case with the Touhou Project, as the character Sekibanki is similar
to a Dullahan, but not entirely.
More accurately, she's a type of Japanese spirit known as a rokurokubi, who can detach
their heads like a Dullahan, but also extend their necks to great lengths.
And yet, her character theme refers to her as a Dullahan; this was, however, an inconsistency
explained by the creator of the Touhou series, ZUN, as he saw the term "Dullahan" as
being the closest approximation of her species' name for non-Japanese speakers.
It doesn't completely match, but it's still the closest the Touhou series has gotten
to the Irish myth.
The Disgaea series has the Living Armor monster class, which appears in Disgaea 1 and Disgaea
D2, where it has the appearance of an animated suit of armor with a flame in place of a head,
and also in Disgaea 5, under the new name of Horsemen, where they now appear to be mounted
units, better referencing the Dullahan legend.
And lastly, it should come as no surprise that Square Enix's Final Fantasy series
has included the Dullahan, though to varying degrees with each appearance.
They're treated as normal enemies in Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy
XIV, and Final Fantasy Legend III, but they also appear as stronger boss enemies in Final
Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
Its appearances vary just as much as its roles, too, appearing as a horse-mounted knight with
its head in its hand, a skeleton driving a chariot made of bones, or simply as an animated
suit of armor, all fitting the criteria of the Dullahan to different degrees.
And that'll do nicely for an overview of the Dullahan, their equally famous Headless
Horseman offshoot, and brief coverage of how video games have adapted both legends.
It probably goes without saying that I've only scratched the surface here, as there
are plenty more video games that feature Dullahan and Headless Horsemen; as many of the examples
I mentioned show, they're not an uncommon sight in RPG games.
Celtic mythology's an odd topic when it comes to the interactive medium; what does
get in is usually much more narrow and specific compared to, say, Greek or Japanese mythology,
even moreso if you narrow it down to a specific region like Cornwall, Scotland, or Wales.
But in the case of the Dullahan, I find it quite remarkable how much video games have
warmed up to the Irish Grim Reapers, both straight from the source and from branching
off of one of Washington Irving's most popular and influential works.
Just remember to always keep a gold coin or two in your pockets if you go walking through
the countryside, just in case.
And that concludes this episode of Caricature Development!
March has certainly been an interesting month for me, in terms of video production.
While St. Patrick's Day is only one day of the month to celebrate Irish culture, I've
still felt compelled to dedicate the month to making videos related to the Emerald Isle,
and I really hope you all have enjoyed them as much as I have enjoyed making them!
Something I'd also like to mention is that I challenged my followers on Twitter to draw
either an existing Dullahan character or their own interpretations of Dullahan, and the results,
as you can see on screen right now, were magnificent!
I'll also being using the description to link you to each artist individually, so if
you love their work, well, why not take a second out of your day to let them know that?
I'm sure they'll appreciate your kind words.
And one last thing, if you enjoyed the video, feel free to like it and type your thoughts
in the comments, and if you're new, you can also subscribe to be notified of future
episodes.
If you're interested in seeing the previous episode of Character Development, on Scáthach
from Fate/Grand Order, or the previous installment of Caricature Development, on Fox Spirits
in video games, then please feel free to use the annotations on-screen
Thanks again for watching, and take care everyone!
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