Sekiro Sekiro: Hips Don't Lie Twice - Resurrection Nerf

[SheevShezarrine]

Sekiro doesn't regenerate from dismemberment. Here's why. Dunno if a similar thread has gone through before, cuz I've seen a few, but it looked like the idea was near being scrapped, and I didn't see those threads through to the end

Some Common, Central Rebuttals

• Sekiro only lost his arm cuz he didn't have his Dragon's Heritage power at the time cuz Hirata Estate time fuckery
• Sekiro can resurrect from attacks that go through his model, ergo this counts as dismembermentand he resurrects from it (my personal favorite spin on this is the claim that he can rez from Saint Isshin chopping him up)

Why These Arguments Are Poodoo As I See It

• Sekiro totally does have the power of the Dragon's Heritage. He shows some pretty important signifiers, including having sakura leaves on him (sakura having a connection to the Dragon's Heritage, most obviously shown by how there's a small shower of sakura leaves whenever Sekiro resurrects), and he has the white mark on his face showing that he is an oathbound of the Dragon's Heritage. This can't be handwaved by "lol time fuckery so he kinda does have it but kinda doesn't cuz Hirata Estate is both in his future but also his past" because (A. The oath mark isn't a permanent thing, if he doesn't have the power of the Dragon's Heritage, he simply doesn't have it, as shown in the Severance ending and (B. Hirata Estate is almost definitely in his past, and he has amnesia of a sort, which is why he doesn't remember. This is signified not only by the fact that he doesn't recall the events of Hirata Estate, which could be handwaved by saying that "he wasn't there yet in his personal timeline, so how could he remember", but also by the fact that, for someone described as a "master shinobi" by the narrator, he's actually pretty mediocre at the start. He subtly fumbles for the hilt of his sword prior to first coming to blows with Genichiro, and doesn't get into an efficient stance immediately afterward. Hell, he doesn't even strike a cool pose, he just stands there, feet seemingly not evenly properly placed, sword at his side, edge not even towards his opponent. And, to add to this, he doesn't even know any core advanced shinobi techniques until he acquires the Shinobi Text. Dude should at very least know the Mikiri if he's still retaining his master shinobi status at the start of the game. Remember this bit of info, it'll come up in an another CRT soon enough.
• Attack going through his hitbox =/= getting dismembered. Otherwise, bosses wouldn't require a final deathblow, since they'd fall to bits once you run down their health bar. Also, he canonically doesn't get chopped up by Saint Isshin, and in fact defeats him on the first go-around with no resurrections. He has no choice but to, since Isshin is wielding a Mortal Blade, something that can permakill Sekiro. And the only time Sekiro is clearly seen getting dismembered, he doesn't regenerate it after resurrecting.

TL;DR: Sekiro dies from getting gibbed. Give 9-A Geraldo a posthumous W against early-game Sekiro.

 

[SheevShezarrine]

Also, gonna be at work for the next few hours, won't be able to respond save for a 15 minute break somewhere around 7:45 my time

 

[SheevShezarrine]

Bump

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I don't want to sound like an ass but this all sounds like headcanon. Based on Occam's Razor, it's only logical that he got the Dragon's Heritage in the so called future's past. It's both a logical and casual time loop, but one thing is certain, he absolutely does not have it until he travels to the past. Every indicator points to this.

 

[SheevShezarrine]

"Based on Occam's Razor?" How does throwing a time loop into this make it simpler and less needlessly complex, especially when Wolf already has a telltale physical signifier of the Dragon's Heritage from the first seconds of the game? Plus, "logical", really? When oftentimes stories dealing heavily in time travel often have to wrestle with logic problems, audience confusion, and sometimes outright plot holes? There's little, if anything, about throwing in a time loop that adheres to the basics of Occam's Razor. Honestly, sounds to me like you're throwing that in to come across as the more logical here without having to put in the leg work and word count.

 

[CrimsonStarFallen]

stop calling him Sekiro, his name is Wolf

 

[DarkGrath]

"He absolutely does not have it until he travels to the future past"

Based on what, exactly? You fully have the ability to resurrect well before entering the Hirata Estate. I'm confused what you mean on this.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

It doesn't make sense for him to have it. Him dying before reaching Hirata Estate is game mechanics as we only ever see Wolf canonically die after Lady Butterfly's boss fight.

 

[DarkGrath]

What do you mean?

The Hirata Estate is Wolf re-experiencing the memories he had in the past. It's even explicitly stated near the beginning of the Hirata Estate that he's experiencing something that happened many years ago. If he got the resurrective power at the end of the Hirata Estate, then he had it several years before the start of the game.

The fact that the Hirata Estate was an event that took place several years before the start of the game, the fact that he got the Resurrective Power at the end of it, and the fact that he doesn't have it at the beginning of the game are three statements we know can't be true at the same time, as they contradict eachother. We know the first two are correct explicitly from what is shown in the story, so the third one must be incorrect.

Furthermore, regardless of whether you have done the Hirata Estate questline at that point, upon finding Lord Kuro he will note the fact that you have the resurrective power and will ask how many times you've died so far for his sake.

Not to mention that the Hirata Estate is an entirely optional side-questline for completing the game, meaning we don't even know if Wolf actually went through it canonically.

He physically had to have had resurrective power before the start of the game. It's canon that the Hirata Estate incident happened several years before the start of the game, and that he got resurrective power at the end of it.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Hirata Estate is not a memory. Wolf killed Owl there. He literally went back in time.

 

[DarkGrath]

That was using an entirely separate method of reaching the Hirata Estate. One which is explicitly stated to have given Wolf a vision of the night separate from what he actually witnessed himself.

And we know that the method for reaching the Lady Butterfly fight was just memories, as the Sculptor himself explicitly states so. Upon using the bell to reach the Hirata Estate when you fight Lady Butterfly, he says this:

"The bell's chime will stir your thoughts, and awaken old memories from their slumber"

On top of this, the game also explicitly explains how fighting Owl was different in the second run though the Hirata Estate in the Father Bell's Charm description.

"Offering this at the Dilapidated Temple might result in witnessing a different memory than before"

The bell charm you use to fight Lady Butterfly was explicitly the demonstration of your own memories, as the Sculptor states. The Father's Bell Charm shows an alternate version of the events, separate from what Wolf actually witnessed, so it's not how things occurred.

The sculptor states in quite straightforward terms that Wolf is simply re-experiencing old memories when he goes back to the Hirata Estate to fight Lady Butterfly. We know that the events that took place for the Purification questline were not how things occurred in reality, whereas the events of the Lady Butterfly fight were.

 

[DarkGrath]

Even if we assume that the Hirata Estate is a literal form of going back in time, just formed from memories rather than being memories in themselves, the fact that fighting Lady Butterfly and the entire questline before and after that was conjured up from Wolf's own memories should be more than enough proof that it actually happened. Otherwise, we're simultaneously stating that these are the events of the past as they happened from Wolf's perspective, and yet they also didn't happen.

 

[ShivaShakti]

Also doesn't Wolf not having resurrection at the start, proceeding to go back in time before the start of the game's main story and getting resurrection at a later point in the game a literal time paradox? He doesn't have Acausality Type 1...

 

[ShadowWhoWalks]

To be fair, Sekiro means "One-Armed Wolf", which is one of the titles Wolf has used by Isshin.

We see Wolf die when he unsheathes the Mortal Blade. We know Wolf dies many times in gameplay by Kuro saying that Wolf did so for his sake.

The Hirata Estate is an optional area that is needed for only one of the four endings, and it was called a memory that might or might not be real multiple times (a world based on Wolf's memories for the Lady Butterfly fight, and then based on Owl's memories in the Owl Father fight) but never time travel. Claiming Wolf only gains immortality through a convoluted timeloop is unjustified when there is a straight-forward timeline.

So if Wolf's immortality is going to be downgraded, what exactly is it getting downgraded to?

There are different immortalities in the game:

• 1- Rejuvenating water; gives Type 2 and 4 immortality, but it seems to be limited as there are mobs who can only resurrect from a single death blow or be unable to resurrect if burned. Can results in madness, red eyes, and a weakness to fire, and Genichiro had access to a concentrated version called the Rejuvenating Sediment. The water associated with the Fountainhead Palace is addictive and transforms people into fish creatures.

• 2- Centipedes; gives Type 2 and 4 immortality by becoming a host to parasitic centipades, more powerful allows function even when beheaded, and there is a cricket variation.

• 3- Divine Heir; gives Type 8 immortality, allows invulnerability so that only the Mortal Blade can wound them and make the heir bleed, and allows bestowing the gift of the Dragon Heritage to others and if they bleed their blood can taken to gain the Dragon's Heritage as well. The Child of Rejunevation can also transform her blood into healing rice that grows out of her palms.

• 4- The Dragon's Heritage; Type 4 and 8 immortality, resurrection after death. The resurrection nodes are canon as they are mentioned in the Jizo Statue description, and when getting the resurrection node upgrade Kuro says that Lord Takeru's dragon blood now lives with him and asks him to use this boon well. After the resurrection nodes are spent Wolf might absorb the life force of his associates and cause Dragonrot, he also loses consciousness like in gameplay; the first Dragonrot cutscene shows Wolf waking up all the way back in the Dilapidated Temple.

Wolf waking up in a far location (Dilapidated Temple) instead of being captured implies that Wolf teleporting somewhere else after true death is legit. There is also the question of why Wolf does not regrow his arm, and no canonical answer is given as far as I am aware, but my guess is that it is connected to the Divine Dragon also missing a left arm so there are issues with regenerating it or Wolf is also fated to miss a left arm, or perhaps Wolf does not desire his arm to be healed since the shinobi prosthetics are useful so they don't get healed after resurrection.

 

[DarkGrath]

I'm personally quite neutral on how the resurrection is affected as a result of all this.

The only part that I had an issue with in particular was the idea that Wolf didn't have resurrection until going through the Hirata Estate memory. If that affects the resurrection in any particular way, so be it; I think there are many different ways you could interpret it to say that he either stays the same or gets downgraded by certain amounts as a result, and I'm not sure I have an opinion yet on which interpretation is the most reliable.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Again, the connection to the Divine Dragon is nice and all, but it's headcanon.

Also we are not downgrading Wolf's immortality. He has type 8 and that's it.

Teleporting back to statues is game mechanics, as enemies respawn and bosses have max health after sitting at statues.