warriorscribe: (Must it be?)
Enoch ([personal profile] warriorscribe) wrote in [personal profile] snowblindmods 2015-06-01 05:02 am (UTC)

Re: Enoch | El Shaddai | oh my god my personality section is too long by itself why

Personality: In the beginning, our only clues to Enoch's personality could be found in a blurb on the now-gone official website for the game. The first thing on his character page was this quote: "No problem. Everything's fine. All will be as God commands..." The first two sentences are his catchphrase, the third added by the localization team to underscore his piety and never seen again. What a versatile catchphrase it is! It can be used at face value, simply telling someone who's asked that he's doing well or that something they want to do is all right. But most of the time it's as reassurance to others or himself, whether in denial or in agreement with how he actually feels - sometimes, he is genuinely optimistic, but often enough it is a mask for his doubts and crises of faith.

Why crises of faith, you might ask, when his piety is one of the two defining traits listed in the blurb? Enoch is extremely pious, very faithful to God and Heaven, and willing to take a lot of pain and keep going for the sake of his beliefs. But he is human, and he can't help but recognize that God and Heaven have, directly or indirectly, caused him this pain. Taken him away from his family on Earth. Made it so he can never have a steady family again. But the presence of this recognition is not the lack of piety. I talked about the pits in The Darkness in the history section, and what vileness can do inside a person's body. What had no place in that discussion was that, without Belial's control, what drives him is a desire to destroy Heaven and The Darkness both. That is the ultimate goal corruption drives him to. It's a testament to that very piety, that such resentment and pain directed at Heaven only comes to light...well, in the dark. Of course he feels them - he is human, after all. But it's not a thing he wants to show, clearly not something about himself he likes or wants, and on top of that he is still so faithful he will not ally himself with The Darkness, either.

The next defining trait is his purity or pure heart. This isn't a childish innocence, no, he's quite old, after all. But there is an optimistic streak in him, and his sense of morality has fewer shades of gray than you'd expect from a jaded old immortal. In fact, though he is jaded and wary of new relationships, and though he's seen some of humanity's ugliest sides firsthand, he never loses his faith in humanity. Even under vileness, with all his doubts, anger, resentment, and fear on display, there was never an echo of that jealous king who ordered him killed during his long search for the Tower. Even if his pain is twisted into a desire to destroy Heaven and The Darkness, there is no sign of resentment against Earth, and no sense that Earth does not deserve to be saved. If it doesn't come out under vileness, chances are it simply isn't there. This is his purity, and this purity leads into his most striking character trait...

...Enoch is empathetic to a fault. At some point in the game's development, a prototype trailer was released, featuring a visual pun on the phrase "love your enemy". That was only the beginning. With the game's release came context, and we saw his overactive empathy in action - never overtly told, but there. There, in the way he had to say nothing or risk pain when he met Nanna, not even allowing himself even the tiniest response. There, on display in Heaven as he fought his doubts - shall we examine these? Chapter 9 is essentially dedicated to Enoch's characterization, showing us what this silent, bold warrior we've been controlling all this time has been feeling, and this is highlighted in the battles he faces that represent his doubts.

First is the tutorial battle where he fights representations of the Grigori taking the Fruits of Wisdom. He's aware that what they did is wrong, and hurts more than it helps, but understands completely they only wanted to ease the hardship of life on Earth. Second is a battle with three Martyrs - unarmed, so there is no focus on the weapons they stole, only on the men he's had to kill (and when he has killed them, where has he sent their souls? Does his holy weapon send them to Heaven or does the Tower send them to The Darkness?). These are men in identical dress, of about the same height, wearing face-concealing masks. And he cannot dehumanize them. It's easy to doubt he's capable at all. Next is a reprise of his battle with Sariel. Sariel's level consisted mostly of playgrounds for the Nephilim, where they were watched over by the spirits of their mothers (Raphael comments they are "bound" to Sariel as if this is a bad thing, but consider where their souls might be if he hadn't bound them...). Sariel seemed to care about those he lived with, and protected his world not like a king or god, but like a clan patriarch. If the game's sympathetic spin seemed odd, it will no longer - it was sympathetic because Enoch was - but wouldn't show it. While the real Sariel taunted Enoch nigh constantly, this representation of him is mostly silent, like the victim he is from Enoch's vileness-laden perspective.

And then there's Armaros. Armaros, who fell because Enoch kindled an interest in Earth by talking to him about it. Armaros, who lost his voice when he fell. Armaros, so devoted to his friend he followed him into The Darkness and faced him even in his weakened state to save him. Enoch may not remember his friendship with Armaros. But Armaros is the largest of these doubts, the one which corresponds to the longest timeskip within the intermittent scenes of what's happening on Earth. Due to his empathy and purity, Enoch has a tendency to blame himself more than he'll ever blame others (which has recently been confirmed outright by Ceta, again is in an alternate timeline but still holds pertinent characterization and world information). And he blames himself for what's happened to Armaros. Just like the Sariel battle, all you need to do is listen - the real Armaros was very quiet. But this one is vocal, giving that whale-like cry again and again. The loss of his voice is central to Enoch's pain in this regard.

Even non-sympathetic characters like the unhinged Ezekiel are not exempt. When he defeated her, he bowed his head as she cried out for her "children", even if her love was inept and misguided. He went to her side and stood beside her as her physical body died, so she didn't have to die alone. And in the prequel manga Exodus and within Ceta too, all it takes is meeting a person for him to worry for their safety, even if that person made him intensely uncomfortable in that meeting.

That's a lot of words to say he has boundless empathy and compassion. It's only by the stakes involved and the magnitude of his loyalty to God that he doesn't attempt to act directly on it with the Grigori - in any other situation, it can absolutely get him in trouble. All it would take is a skilled manipulator. (Like you all have seen already. Who remembers him letting Riki in on the whole goddamn plan?)

This empathy leads to other problems, such as a disregard for his own safety when another person is at risk. In the game, we see this when he leaps into The Darkness to try to save Nanna, and in Exodus, he leaps into a tornado to save a human soul, and then off Heaven's edge to try to break up a fight. In Ceta, he risks his life to try to purify a Nephilim and save a pair of stray sheep. He is too empathetic, too heroic. Only luck and timely intervention have prevented it from killing him so far, and should his own will to live falter this will only grow worse.

How easy is it to make him despair such that he has no will to live? It's hard to tell if you aren't being told, because Enoch lives so much for other people already. What seems like a calm exterior may be hiding deep distress, and when he has nothing else to focus on or gets a moment alone, or is pushed to the breaking point, it could come to light easily where we don't see it in the game (confirmed in Ceta, where Enoch remarks on the verge of a defeat that he no longer has a reason to be alive anyway).

Mostly, however, this despair is masked by sheer determination - and just because it's sometimes a mask doesn't mean it's not real. Even in the greatest pain, even under Belial's control, during that battle Enoch will make himself vulnerable as he struggles against it (though he's unable to break it: the moment of freedom turns him over to his pain and he only ends up thrashing in it before Belial regains control). On the flip side, it also makes him stubborn, and prone to not listening if he's made up his mind to do otherwise. This can be very good, as it ensures there is indeed a plot for his game, but I shouldn't have to tell you it doesn't exactly help the recklessness I mentioned earlier.

On a more lighthearted note, if you've seen any gameplay at all, something will catch your eye very quickly: Enoch is flashy, adding unnecessary spins and flips to almost everything he does. This could be due to a number of things, such as a love of adrenaline (sure does make you feel young again! And there is that adrenaline-charged grin when he picks up the Veil weapon for the first time) or simply for fun (in Exodus, he does dance on a table with Armaros), and the strongest canonical evidence we have for it is in Ceta, where Enoch is mesmerized by the energetic, graceful way Lucifel fights. Considering every tutorial screen in the game is Lucifel pausing time to teach Enoch about the subject at hand, it need not be confined to that timeline alone. He could have easily seen Lucifel fight for himself while we were given button explanations. (In fact, this is further backed up by Ceta, as we see Lucifel fight with a weapon for the first time and his style matches Enoch's, implying he taught Enoch his style rather than Enoch making one up to fit the weapon.) This shows that he's actually quite eager to please and impress others. Given his empathy, it makes sense: he's happy when others are.

Additionally, Enoch has a learner's mind. He's very curious, and asks questions about almost everything, as revealed in a character interview (this was also a crux of his characterization in the Book of Enoch, itself). He also picks up new concepts very rapidly. With a little instruction, he is able to pick up three rather unusual weapons and use them effectively on short notice, and this is taken to an almost comical extreme when the same is done for a motorcycle - he even manages to use the vehicle effectively in combat during Azazel's stage. It shows he has an open mind and embraces the unknown rather than being afraid of it. But this rapid learning must be under pressure - all of these examples were in life-or-death situations, and for all of this he doesn't know how to swim, indicating that it takes these exceptional circumstances (and the time to inspect or be instructed even a little) to trigger this and he doesn't simply master every new thing he encounters instantly. His learning rate is still probably better than average, but not without the mistakes and blunders of normal learners. By the way, combined with his stubbornness? This makes him a meddler. He'll get into things whether you like it or not. He did, after all, contest a ruling Heaven made.

When it comes to other people, with most he is quiet and closed off unless there is some reason to talk, whether they're in trouble, he's in trouble, or he needs information and they haven't taken it upon themselves to start talking like Nanna had. It makes it hard to get close to him at first, and I've already said why this is. But he just can't hold on to his heart - if he was good at keeping everyone at arm's length, he would still be able to minimally socialize while doing so. But no - Nanna, our best example, gets no response at all. But this assumes the other person is mortal. Fellow immortals are another story. Fellow immortals will not age and die, and fellow immortals will understand. Once he learns a person is immortal, his true, outgoing nature will likely begin to show itself in full. Or, perhaps if he feels safe or needs to talk, he'll spill everything to a mortal - he encountered a Freeman who escaped on his search for the Tower, which is what allowed him to find it in the first place. But it's more than a lifetime later before he actually arrives, and the Freemen know all about him, including his immortality. This implies he told that Freeman everything. However, he can't abide being all alone, and the isolating nature of Norfinbury and his lack of acclimation to remote communication will see to him opening up to others far more readily than he would anywhere else.

But back home, non-immortals were met with someone hard to respond to. In fact, the most important canonmates he could ever have are immortal, and are so important to him they get mentions all their own.

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