Nom nom teal deer~ ♥ (Part 1: Opening cutscenes)
WARNING: DEBATABLY MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DIGITAL DEVIL SAGA WITHIN. I am not making that up. Thought you should know before you start reading.
Putting this part, at least, up now. I've been meaning to write it up since forever, but am only now getting around to it. Fail, right? Haha. Anyway! These are my TL;DR observations on the first part of DDS1, and some of my theories on what's going on, and notes on Harley's probable perspective, specifically. If anyone was wondering about some of the details in that part of the game, or even just why the heck I decided on certain aspects to his personality, this might help a bit. Yes, I do gloss over a lot of stuff that doesn't directly relate to him, like the Embryon's meeting after they wake up and return to base. I'm more interested in his character and psychology, for this writeup, than the other characters'. Maybe I'll write more about them later.
I've gotten my hands on three versions of DDS: the US release, the Japanese release, and the "undubbed" game, which is when someone gets clever with their editing, and takes out the English audio files for the game, to replace them with the Japanese ones. The result is a game with the English version's menus and subtitles (all the localization niceties) but with the original Japanese actors' audio reinstated. (Ahh, Bit Torrent, how I love thee.)
So, while I've managed to play the Japanese version a fair bit... I really don't know Japanese well enough to play the game easily, and as most of the game requires a good bit of reading, I'm not planning on going much further into it than I already have, yet. It doesn't include an option for English subtitles/menus, but I've still gotten some interesting details from it. The Undubbed version, however, is much more accessible.
First, there's the intro movie. I might add a link, but you can easily enough find the English version of it on Youtube.
There's a distinct difference in the very first part of it that I find worth mentioning, between the Japanese and English versions. The English version starts out with the text-conversation between two people, one talking about unleashing the demons, and the other person protesting. The Japanese version has a very similar text-conversation going on as well.
...and it's in English, with Japanese subtitles at the bottom. I mean-- the conversation itself is in English. Imperfect English, but English nonetheless. I'm pretty certain that this points to the characters all speaking English, ICly. Just because the actors are speaking in Japanese does not negate the fact that in canon, the characters are not. (That, and it apparently takes place in or near "New Portland," according to DDS2. Sounds fairly North American to me, so I'm going to put it near Portland, Oregon, since it's the obvious pick. They use $ (dollars) in DDS2, too, and there's no way that "David" and "Jenna" and "Terrence" and "Fred" are Japanese names. I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming there, in favor of English.)
Anyway....
(The Junkyard scene starts with a faceoff between the Embryon and Vanguards, around the "spiky artichoke" looking pod... thing.)
In this little bit, that expression on Harley's face is pretty clearly a smirk, as he readies to attack. As far as I'm aware, this one little scene right here is where everyone gets the "he's cocky" ideas.
Well, let's think about this.
How many men does he have over on his side? A lot. They've got repeating crossbows with explosive bolts and the Embryon only have five people over on their side, including their Leader. That's it. They have them outnumbered, outgunned (yes, I know they have a sniper on their team, but the Vanguards still technically should have the advantage here!) and aside from the fact that we all know the main characters can't die yet Embryon are all quite skilled, Harley and his men probably have every reason to believe that they have a good shot at creaming these guys.
So, it might well not be that he's all smug by default, so much as that he felt he was in a good position to get rid of a small Tribe that was arguably a thorn in his side.
If you had yourself a dozen (or more, I think? I need to re-count) troops to back you up, plus weaponry like that, against five people you've been trying to get rid of for a while now, who only have more conventional, non-explosive guns... wouldn't you be enjoying those odds? He's confident. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the feeling of anticipating your likely victory.
(Serph's scope, on viewing Harley and a few other people, but let's forgive that they re-used the same text, since it was clearly meant for Harley says, to the lower left:)
Tribe: assignments
name: patriarch
sex: male
age: 00027
????: 00055958
strength: 00000513
Cool. Well, the Vanguards were originally called the Assignments (...yes, I like the English name for them a lot better!) Harley is, without a doubt, their Leader, male, and... apparently he's supposed to be 27 years old, nature of the Junkyard aside. He does look like he could be that age, so I won't attempt to argue it. I do, however, wonder if he is aware. Why would he have any reason to check into what their scopes say about him? He knows he's the Leader of his Tribe.
I really would like some help figuring out what that second to last line says, on the left, though. If anyone can figure it out, please let me know? The original screencap is right here, and I've tried enlarging that text just a tad, here in case it helps.
The last line is a fun tidbit... Harley has just over five hundred people in his Tribe, regardless of what the last number actually is. Those horizontal lines across the display make it difficult to read. So if Harley has 500-520 people in his Tribe, and Jinana has an attack party of 500, and Vanguards (or what'll be left of them) + Embryon < Maribels... what does this say about how many people are in the Embryon, I wonder?
(The Embryon move forward, and the Vanguards open fire on them. The Vanguards lose some people, but Serph and his officers are still standing, and finally they're close enough to see each other, and hear each other better, when the firing ends.)
Gale: Warning to the Vanguards: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war.
Harley: Warning to the Embryon: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war.
As the Unskippable commentary for the intro movie correctly points out (I should find the link to that too...) this little exchange of warnings is the equivalent of, "Hey, Harley. Take back your weird pod thing." "It's not ours. You take it back!" ...which says clearly, neither side had any idea what it was. Serph's scope, after all, flashed "NO DATA" when he looked at it, so I can only assume that Harley's was equally unhelpful, if he had one.
Also interesting, at least to me, is to note that in the English-language version for this cutscene, both Gale's and Harley's voices, during that little exchange, are modified to sound as though they're speaking through comms of some kind, whether it's a headset comm, or PA type system. I would assume that Gale's microphone is hidden within that hood of his, and the speakers are in the round parts of it that sit over his ears... and this theory is somewhat supported by the Brutes' apparent use of comms of some kind later too, in the ship mission. ...and the Brutes all wear hoods like Gale's. Harley's, I suspect, would be a smaller headset kind of thing, probably hidden by that cloth.
Note: I poked around and figured out what Harley is wearing. The way he ties his scarf around his head like that is called a tagelmust, and you can find videos on how to put one on, on... Youtube! I've tried it. It's pretty easy... but finding out how it's tied leads me to believe that he's wearing three scarves. One is tied around his hips, one is around his head, and the third is loose around his neck, sitting on his shoulders. At any rate, they're useful things. They're good for protecting you from the sun, the wind... you can easily enough put it up to keep dust out of your face in the desert... and I'm guessing that the dust part, at least, might have relevance in the Junkyard, dirty as that place is. It's no fun to come out of battle choking on what was airborne plaster debris, just because someone exploded a dry chunk of wall near you. Failing that, at least it could help keep their hair clean?
In the Japanese intro, this scene is a little different: Gale and Harley's voices are unmodified, suggesting that they'd managed to get close enough to each other to hear each other unaided by comms or a PA of some sort. It's hard to say exactly whether they are close enough for that or not, but I could buy it.
(The pod explodes, light flies everywhere, and the people all start glowing with the Atma lines. The view seems to be from Serph's scope; he was the last person seen before the view changed, and he was still wearing it. The picture has scan lines across it, is dark, mostly green and purple, and has a faint data display in the upper-right corner.)
Harley: What is this?
(Harley's not looking so good here -- he's holding his hands up in front of him a bit, like he's trying to resist, perhaps, while one of his men, behind him and to his right, are already changing into one of those common, weak little Ghoul enemies.)
(the screen fills with repetitions of "Eat them all - Eat them all -" and clearly, there is a glitch in the Matrix things are getting a lot more ominous. "Om Mani Padme Hum" is displayed, with the subtitle, "(Pearl of the holy lotus)" When it clears, you can see, however briefly, Hayagriva.)
This part was fun to look at, and I'll let you figure out how sarcastic or sincere that comment is. Going frame-by-frame, it's a little clearer what's happening in this, when we get the first little glimpse of Harley's demon pony form.
(Harley starts twisted to face his left, to the right side of the screen. To his right side, that guy from before who'd turned into a ghoul is arguably getting closer to him, raising an arm -- and in a flash, Harley's bent down a bit and twisted around to his right, sending that sword-like horn of his right through the ghoul. It all happens very quickly, and though the ghoul's top half falls off, its lower half remains standing for the moment while Harley straightens back up again, pulling his head back. That's one fast pony. He leans back, opening his mouth, the blood still spurting up from the ghoul's lower half....)
(The word "Varna" flashes on the screen. When the word clears, Harley's bent down in front of the camera, those two "wing" things sticking up over/behind him. He almost comes up, briefly, then ducks back down a little more (perhaps he's trying to get better hold of something in his teeth?) and then jerks his head back up quickly, with what looks like half of the ghoul dropping out of his mouth and falling again.)
For those last few frames, the scene is very distorted and difficult to make out any details. I played it back frame by frame in my own captured version of it, with a levelling filter on it, and I still wasn't entirely sure exactly what all happened. On another TV, watching it again, it looks like he pulled up the ghoul's severed upper half, by a shoulder... but as for what's missing from it aside from its lower half, I'm not altogether certain. I could, however, see Harley's teeth relatively clearly, and it didn't look as though he had anything in his mouth after pulling the thing up.
Argue how you will about whether he chowed down or not here, all I can say with any certainty was that he was tearing the thing to pieces. Personally, I'm thinking he was just freaking out at what he probably thought was attacking him (and maybe that Vanguard-turned-ghoul was attacking him, or about to?) and going overkill on the damage he was inflicting on it. I can imagine him stomping on it with a hoof while he grabs another part of it with his teeth and rips upwards, and just pulling it apart like that. Whether he ingested it while he trashed it is anyone's guess. The storyboarding I saw somewhere for it suggests he probably did eat at least some of it, but if that's the case, it isn't actually shown in the intro here.
(The view changes again. Now it shows Serph's scope landing on the battlefield's ground, confirming that the view from before was from this little device.)
(Varna is seen, from below, looking up at him, the view once more distorted by the scope's visual effects of being dark and purple and having those lines across it, like a TV with bad interlacing. He's yelling, and lashes out with his arm blades at some unseen opponent, and the scope's view gets obscured by blood over its lens. The scene goes dark.)
Another interesting difference between the Japanese and English editions of DDS2 is right here. The voice's yells you hear at this point are distinctly different between the versions. With how they each seem to at least somewhat match up with Serph's -- Varna's -- movements, I'm thinking that this is one of the few times in DDS that you actually get to hear Serph's voice. Beyond that, his voice in this clip doesn't sound to have been altered all that much, in either version. On the subject of voices, Harley's voice is fairly different between the versions too -- he's sort of higher-pitched in the English version, especially when he's freaking out later on. I like his English voice better.
And somewhat nitpicky, but it amuses me: the blood splatter that covers the screen has a relatively fine splatter pattern to it, suggesting that it's on a fairly big scale. The scope's lens isn't very big, though, only about the size of a normal camera... so it kind of makes it look like all the blood is covering a window or something that's in front of the scope/camera's position. Really, if they wanted blood splatter to obscure a small camera lens, it wouldn't be but a few drops. But the big splatters get the point across so nicely... especially with the color distortion, making the liquid appear more black. Heh.
(The scene comes back from black -- the terrain is in silhouette, lit by a dim red haze from below/behind the figure in the center (Varna) as though it were sunset or something. Varna's holding something large up, and apparently taking a bite out of it, pulling it away from him without letting go of whatever it is. The scene fades to black again.)
I have no idea why this part of the scene is lit like this. My best guess is that it's from Harley's point of view as he came to again, and wasn't quite awake enough to focus very well yet after that disorienting bloodbath. ...which would explain why it's so dark, and unfocused at first. Which would then suggest that it's lit like it is because the light isn't from a sunset, but from the glowy crater in which Sera's still asleep. How she slept through all this is a mystery, but oh well. So is she, at this early stage in the game.
I've been trying to figure out what it is that Serph's eating. It doesn't look like an arm or anything... actually, when I go frame by frame, it looks like it has several very thin tentacles or something, coming from either the middle or the ends, and hanging over the latter. I'm going to hazard a guess that the Embryon Leader managed to score himself an omoikane. Yum yum sushi.
This little shot could also account quite neatly for why Harley knows more about this incident at the explosion than the Embryon do. If he woke back up after the frenzy before the others, and saw Varna chowing down on a shape over there... well, Serph did wake back up in human form. Which means it's not implausible that Harley could've seen that big monster he'd seen chowing down on something turn into Serph, and put two and two together -- his men were gone, Serph had turned into a monster and was eating something... not rocket science.
I also don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that with his very strong reaction after he woke up -- blind panic -- that as much as he was able to feel, at this point, what with not being awake yet, the monster frenzy could've very well been traumatic enough to him that he could recall at least the fact that he was freaking out, that there was the explosion, the light, and then oh god the monsters--!
Not that he needs to have remembered everything in detail. If it was that horrible to him, I'm pretty sure that he'd have been trying to block out at least some of it. Vaguely knowing the events doesn't mean having to recall everything clearly, or even all that accurately.
(The next shot is of the blue sky, with the beach sounds, and when Serph wakes up from it, he himself has woken up, his eyes no longer flat gray, but clear silver. The Vanguards aren't present, but Cielo calls Serph over to the crater that he and Heat found, and they all head back to Muladhara with Sera, to talk about her behind her back sum up the situation: They've got new marks on them, have a strange girl in one of the spare beds, and have no clue what happened. Heat decides to take Serph and Argilla to Svadhisthana to question Harley, which surprises Cielo, and you set out.)
(Continued here.)
Putting this part, at least, up now. I've been meaning to write it up since forever, but am only now getting around to it. Fail, right? Haha. Anyway! These are my TL;DR observations on the first part of DDS1, and some of my theories on what's going on, and notes on Harley's probable perspective, specifically. If anyone was wondering about some of the details in that part of the game, or even just why the heck I decided on certain aspects to his personality, this might help a bit. Yes, I do gloss over a lot of stuff that doesn't directly relate to him, like the Embryon's meeting after they wake up and return to base. I'm more interested in his character and psychology, for this writeup, than the other characters'. Maybe I'll write more about them later.
I've gotten my hands on three versions of DDS: the US release, the Japanese release, and the "undubbed" game, which is when someone gets clever with their editing, and takes out the English audio files for the game, to replace them with the Japanese ones. The result is a game with the English version's menus and subtitles (all the localization niceties) but with the original Japanese actors' audio reinstated. (Ahh, Bit Torrent, how I love thee.)
So, while I've managed to play the Japanese version a fair bit... I really don't know Japanese well enough to play the game easily, and as most of the game requires a good bit of reading, I'm not planning on going much further into it than I already have, yet. It doesn't include an option for English subtitles/menus, but I've still gotten some interesting details from it. The Undubbed version, however, is much more accessible.
First, there's the intro movie. I might add a link, but you can easily enough find the English version of it on Youtube.
There's a distinct difference in the very first part of it that I find worth mentioning, between the Japanese and English versions. The English version starts out with the text-conversation between two people, one talking about unleashing the demons, and the other person protesting. The Japanese version has a very similar text-conversation going on as well.
...and it's in English, with Japanese subtitles at the bottom. I mean-- the conversation itself is in English. Imperfect English, but English nonetheless. I'm pretty certain that this points to the characters all speaking English, ICly. Just because the actors are speaking in Japanese does not negate the fact that in canon, the characters are not. (That, and it apparently takes place in or near "New Portland," according to DDS2. Sounds fairly North American to me, so I'm going to put it near Portland, Oregon, since it's the obvious pick. They use $ (dollars) in DDS2, too, and there's no way that "David" and "Jenna" and "Terrence" and "Fred" are Japanese names. I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming there, in favor of English.)
Anyway....
(The Junkyard scene starts with a faceoff between the Embryon and Vanguards, around the "spiky artichoke" looking pod... thing.)
In this little bit, that expression on Harley's face is pretty clearly a smirk, as he readies to attack. As far as I'm aware, this one little scene right here is where everyone gets the "he's cocky" ideas.
Well, let's think about this.
How many men does he have over on his side? A lot. They've got repeating crossbows with explosive bolts and the Embryon only have five people over on their side, including their Leader. That's it. They have them outnumbered, outgunned (yes, I know they have a sniper on their team, but the Vanguards still technically should have the advantage here!) and aside from the fact that we all know the main characters can't die yet Embryon are all quite skilled, Harley and his men probably have every reason to believe that they have a good shot at creaming these guys.
So, it might well not be that he's all smug by default, so much as that he felt he was in a good position to get rid of a small Tribe that was arguably a thorn in his side.
If you had yourself a dozen (or more, I think? I need to re-count) troops to back you up, plus weaponry like that, against five people you've been trying to get rid of for a while now, who only have more conventional, non-explosive guns... wouldn't you be enjoying those odds? He's confident. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the feeling of anticipating your likely victory.
(Serph's scope, on viewing Harley and a few other people, but let's forgive that they re-used the same text, since it was clearly meant for Harley says, to the lower left:)
Tribe: assignments
name: patriarch
sex: male
age: 00027
????: 00055958
strength: 00000513
Cool. Well, the Vanguards were originally called the Assignments (...yes, I like the English name for them a lot better!) Harley is, without a doubt, their Leader, male, and... apparently he's supposed to be 27 years old, nature of the Junkyard aside. He does look like he could be that age, so I won't attempt to argue it. I do, however, wonder if he is aware. Why would he have any reason to check into what their scopes say about him? He knows he's the Leader of his Tribe.
I really would like some help figuring out what that second to last line says, on the left, though. If anyone can figure it out, please let me know? The original screencap is right here, and I've tried enlarging that text just a tad, here in case it helps.
The last line is a fun tidbit... Harley has just over five hundred people in his Tribe, regardless of what the last number actually is. Those horizontal lines across the display make it difficult to read. So if Harley has 500-520 people in his Tribe, and Jinana has an attack party of 500, and Vanguards (or what'll be left of them) + Embryon < Maribels... what does this say about how many people are in the Embryon, I wonder?
(The Embryon move forward, and the Vanguards open fire on them. The Vanguards lose some people, but Serph and his officers are still standing, and finally they're close enough to see each other, and hear each other better, when the firing ends.)
Gale: Warning to the Vanguards: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war.
Harley: Warning to the Embryon: Remove the unidentified object at coordinates 2314 5873. Failure to comply will be deemed an act of war.
As the Unskippable commentary for the intro movie correctly points out (I should find the link to that too...) this little exchange of warnings is the equivalent of, "Hey, Harley. Take back your weird pod thing." "It's not ours. You take it back!" ...which says clearly, neither side had any idea what it was. Serph's scope, after all, flashed "NO DATA" when he looked at it, so I can only assume that Harley's was equally unhelpful, if he had one.
Also interesting, at least to me, is to note that in the English-language version for this cutscene, both Gale's and Harley's voices, during that little exchange, are modified to sound as though they're speaking through comms of some kind, whether it's a headset comm, or PA type system. I would assume that Gale's microphone is hidden within that hood of his, and the speakers are in the round parts of it that sit over his ears... and this theory is somewhat supported by the Brutes' apparent use of comms of some kind later too, in the ship mission. ...and the Brutes all wear hoods like Gale's. Harley's, I suspect, would be a smaller headset kind of thing, probably hidden by that cloth.
Note: I poked around and figured out what Harley is wearing. The way he ties his scarf around his head like that is called a tagelmust, and you can find videos on how to put one on, on... Youtube! I've tried it. It's pretty easy... but finding out how it's tied leads me to believe that he's wearing three scarves. One is tied around his hips, one is around his head, and the third is loose around his neck, sitting on his shoulders. At any rate, they're useful things. They're good for protecting you from the sun, the wind... you can easily enough put it up to keep dust out of your face in the desert... and I'm guessing that the dust part, at least, might have relevance in the Junkyard, dirty as that place is. It's no fun to come out of battle choking on what was airborne plaster debris, just because someone exploded a dry chunk of wall near you. Failing that, at least it could help keep their hair clean?
In the Japanese intro, this scene is a little different: Gale and Harley's voices are unmodified, suggesting that they'd managed to get close enough to each other to hear each other unaided by comms or a PA of some sort. It's hard to say exactly whether they are close enough for that or not, but I could buy it.
(The pod explodes, light flies everywhere, and the people all start glowing with the Atma lines. The view seems to be from Serph's scope; he was the last person seen before the view changed, and he was still wearing it. The picture has scan lines across it, is dark, mostly green and purple, and has a faint data display in the upper-right corner.)
Harley: What is this?
(Harley's not looking so good here -- he's holding his hands up in front of him a bit, like he's trying to resist, perhaps, while one of his men, behind him and to his right, are already changing into one of those common, weak little Ghoul enemies.)
(the screen fills with repetitions of "Eat them all - Eat them all -" and clearly, there is a glitch in the Matrix things are getting a lot more ominous. "Om Mani Padme Hum" is displayed, with the subtitle, "(Pearl of the holy lotus)" When it clears, you can see, however briefly, Hayagriva.)
This part was fun to look at, and I'll let you figure out how sarcastic or sincere that comment is. Going frame-by-frame, it's a little clearer what's happening in this, when we get the first little glimpse of Harley's demon pony form.
(Harley starts twisted to face his left, to the right side of the screen. To his right side, that guy from before who'd turned into a ghoul is arguably getting closer to him, raising an arm -- and in a flash, Harley's bent down a bit and twisted around to his right, sending that sword-like horn of his right through the ghoul. It all happens very quickly, and though the ghoul's top half falls off, its lower half remains standing for the moment while Harley straightens back up again, pulling his head back. That's one fast pony. He leans back, opening his mouth, the blood still spurting up from the ghoul's lower half....)
(The word "Varna" flashes on the screen. When the word clears, Harley's bent down in front of the camera, those two "wing" things sticking up over/behind him. He almost comes up, briefly, then ducks back down a little more (perhaps he's trying to get better hold of something in his teeth?) and then jerks his head back up quickly, with what looks like half of the ghoul dropping out of his mouth and falling again.)
For those last few frames, the scene is very distorted and difficult to make out any details. I played it back frame by frame in my own captured version of it, with a levelling filter on it, and I still wasn't entirely sure exactly what all happened. On another TV, watching it again, it looks like he pulled up the ghoul's severed upper half, by a shoulder... but as for what's missing from it aside from its lower half, I'm not altogether certain. I could, however, see Harley's teeth relatively clearly, and it didn't look as though he had anything in his mouth after pulling the thing up.
Argue how you will about whether he chowed down or not here, all I can say with any certainty was that he was tearing the thing to pieces. Personally, I'm thinking he was just freaking out at what he probably thought was attacking him (and maybe that Vanguard-turned-ghoul was attacking him, or about to?) and going overkill on the damage he was inflicting on it. I can imagine him stomping on it with a hoof while he grabs another part of it with his teeth and rips upwards, and just pulling it apart like that. Whether he ingested it while he trashed it is anyone's guess. The storyboarding I saw somewhere for it suggests he probably did eat at least some of it, but if that's the case, it isn't actually shown in the intro here.
(The view changes again. Now it shows Serph's scope landing on the battlefield's ground, confirming that the view from before was from this little device.)
(Varna is seen, from below, looking up at him, the view once more distorted by the scope's visual effects of being dark and purple and having those lines across it, like a TV with bad interlacing. He's yelling, and lashes out with his arm blades at some unseen opponent, and the scope's view gets obscured by blood over its lens. The scene goes dark.)
Another interesting difference between the Japanese and English editions of DDS2 is right here. The voice's yells you hear at this point are distinctly different between the versions. With how they each seem to at least somewhat match up with Serph's -- Varna's -- movements, I'm thinking that this is one of the few times in DDS that you actually get to hear Serph's voice. Beyond that, his voice in this clip doesn't sound to have been altered all that much, in either version. On the subject of voices, Harley's voice is fairly different between the versions too -- he's sort of higher-pitched in the English version, especially when he's freaking out later on. I like his English voice better.
And somewhat nitpicky, but it amuses me: the blood splatter that covers the screen has a relatively fine splatter pattern to it, suggesting that it's on a fairly big scale. The scope's lens isn't very big, though, only about the size of a normal camera... so it kind of makes it look like all the blood is covering a window or something that's in front of the scope/camera's position. Really, if they wanted blood splatter to obscure a small camera lens, it wouldn't be but a few drops. But the big splatters get the point across so nicely... especially with the color distortion, making the liquid appear more black. Heh.
(The scene comes back from black -- the terrain is in silhouette, lit by a dim red haze from below/behind the figure in the center (Varna) as though it were sunset or something. Varna's holding something large up, and apparently taking a bite out of it, pulling it away from him without letting go of whatever it is. The scene fades to black again.)
I have no idea why this part of the scene is lit like this. My best guess is that it's from Harley's point of view as he came to again, and wasn't quite awake enough to focus very well yet after that disorienting bloodbath. ...which would explain why it's so dark, and unfocused at first. Which would then suggest that it's lit like it is because the light isn't from a sunset, but from the glowy crater in which Sera's still asleep. How she slept through all this is a mystery, but oh well. So is she, at this early stage in the game.
I've been trying to figure out what it is that Serph's eating. It doesn't look like an arm or anything... actually, when I go frame by frame, it looks like it has several very thin tentacles or something, coming from either the middle or the ends, and hanging over the latter. I'm going to hazard a guess that the Embryon Leader managed to score himself an omoikane. Yum yum sushi.
This little shot could also account quite neatly for why Harley knows more about this incident at the explosion than the Embryon do. If he woke back up after the frenzy before the others, and saw Varna chowing down on a shape over there... well, Serph did wake back up in human form. Which means it's not implausible that Harley could've seen that big monster he'd seen chowing down on something turn into Serph, and put two and two together -- his men were gone, Serph had turned into a monster and was eating something... not rocket science.
I also don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that with his very strong reaction after he woke up -- blind panic -- that as much as he was able to feel, at this point, what with not being awake yet, the monster frenzy could've very well been traumatic enough to him that he could recall at least the fact that he was freaking out, that there was the explosion, the light, and then oh god the monsters--!
Not that he needs to have remembered everything in detail. If it was that horrible to him, I'm pretty sure that he'd have been trying to block out at least some of it. Vaguely knowing the events doesn't mean having to recall everything clearly, or even all that accurately.
(The next shot is of the blue sky, with the beach sounds, and when Serph wakes up from it, he himself has woken up, his eyes no longer flat gray, but clear silver. The Vanguards aren't present, but Cielo calls Serph over to the crater that he and Heat found, and they all head back to Muladhara with Sera, to talk about her behind her back sum up the situation: They've got new marks on them, have a strange girl in one of the spare beds, and have no clue what happened. Heat decides to take Serph and Argilla to Svadhisthana to question Harley, which surprises Cielo, and you set out.)
(Continued here.)