Talking Ico: Part 2 - Entombment - Video Game Chat Fansite

So the knights have brought the horned boy, Ico, to a mysterious offshore fortress. Well, what is the deal with this fortress? We will not know for a good while but the opening affords us a number of things to observe about its mystery.

We left Ico and his captors gazing on the castle from a handsome if somewhat run down stone platform, sporting Greek style colonnades, at the edge of a shoreside cliff. Next we see that same platform from below. The camera traces the cliff down to the sea, where a mean-looking wooden dock extends from the shore. The party, now horseless, crosses the channel to the island on a very small boat. This ought to strike an observant viewer as being rather odd. To explain let me show you some screen shots I have borrowed from Vincent Lam's fine fan page.

You should recognize this shot from the title screen. Near the lower right corner is the portico-like platform we just left behind. Here is another shot of much the same from a frontal view.

This shot presents the castle as Ico and the knights must have seen it from the cliff. In both pictures we can plainly see the front gate, flung wide open. Now why would they not enter through it? Why would they go to the trouble of climbing down the precipice and braving ocean waves on a tiny boat you would not want for a fishing excursion on the village lake? We of course know that the bridge is not yet available. But remember that we are pretending to see all this for the first time without any prior knowledge about ICO. Imagine, in fact, that you are the boy himself who just saw the castle for the first time in his life. Would you not be surprised to see an open gate a hundred yards ahead, only to learn that you are not to enter that way?--that a gate exists but it is useless because there is no way for you or anybody to get to it? That the knights do not have the option of using the main entrance and are forced to use a back door (if you will) informs us that they are treading a territory not their own. They are setting foot on someone else's turf, someone evidently more powerful than they.

Now if you please, take one more look at the images above. Suppose now that a castle just like this one actually existed somewhere. What about it would surprise you the most?

If you have an inkling of what it took to erect a castle a thousand years ago, the most striking thing in these pictures is undoubtedly the geography. People simply did not build a castle that big on that sort of terrain. For starters the island is hundreds of feet tall. It is so steep that climbing it on foot would be a task only for daredevils. Imagine now having to haul many millions of tons of bricks to the top of that island. And there isn't just one island. There are four. I might have fancied the bricks came from the islands, but another look at the castle suggests differently. The structure is so humongous that if it was removed the mass of the islands would shrink by half. It occupies every available square inch of the islands so that there is hardly any surface that is not built on. The islands could not have supplied the needed quantity of materials. They do not even have space enough to allow so massive a construction work. Medieval architects, who had no mechanized cranes to raise stones to great heights, erected the frame for a castle by first mounting up an artificial hill much broader than the finished edifice. That would not be a possibility here.

Now of course this castle is as fictional as the rest of the story. Such a fortress as this does not exist and could not exist. It is quite silly to speculate how a nonexistent building might have been built, since it never was built. I am only trying to impress upon you that, granting for the story's sake that the castle existed, it would have to be a staggering feat of engineering on the par with the pyramids in terms of labor involved. It would leave us wondering who in the world built it. That is if human hands could build something like that at all. But if not human hands then what? Would it be the work of whomever the castle belongs to? If so that person must be, or must have been, a mighty lord indeed.

Let us move on. I said that the castle stands on four islands. Here let me for a moment waive my proposal that we use on-screen information only for our exercise. Below is a map of the castle which shows the layout of the islands.

The islands are arranged in an unnatural symmetry. The tiny strip of land at the bottom is the shore from which the party sets out on the boat. Directly facing the shore is the main keep, and to its left and right are the two buildings that house the "keys" for the gate. The fourth and smallest island is at the top of the map. It is hidden from the view ashore. Later we will see that this island is the heart of the fortress. It is also where our boat is bound. The knights sail halfway round the islands and bring their prisoner to the point farthest from the shore. A cavern opens into the island. Its entrance is marked by rows of immense stone pillars that appear to be rooted in the seabed, another remarkable feat. Some of the pillars are on the verge of collapse. Like from the ruinous stone platform atop the cliff we get a sense that the castle, though majestic, has not been terribly well cared for of late. The lattice barring the cavern is lowered and we are finally inside the island. The party stands directly underneath the castle.

"Get the sword," a knight in a pointy mask--it looks ominously like an executioner's cap--tells another man. The man departs with the order while the rest of the company leave in the opposite direction. So the knights have not brought "the sword" with them, whatever it is. It was already here on the island--whatever it is.

Next we see the knight rejoin the company, having secured the sword. Here another detail ought to strike us as curious, though we only see it briefly. Ico and the men are presumably still in the bowel of the island. But the space surrounding them is not the jagged and coarse interior of a natural cavern. They stand inside a vertical circular vault. And it is gigantic--especially when we consider that it is underground. The island's rocky core has been hollowed out like a macaroni noodle, yet another example of the awesome labor that created the castle. Later we will have a far better opportunity to appreciate the scale of this vault.

The sword is unsheathed before a pair of statues at the center of the vault. An eerie flash crackles and the statues part to reveal a recess. Inside is a sort of elevator which takes the party to the crypt above. Now I admit that I did not like this elevator the first time I saw it. It seemed much too mechanical--much too modern--and seemed out of place in the ancient setting of the castle. I revised my opinion somewhat after completing the game. For now the only thing about the elevator I want to note is the switch that controls it. It is in the form of a glowing character whose meaning escapes us. When thrown off the switch turns to form a different character, causing the platform to rise. What is that about?

The knights have reached their destination: a rounded chamber reminiscent of an arena. Rows of stone caskets are arranged round the arena. One of them gapes open. The men deposit Ico in it and close shut the lid. They bid the child farewell. Their words betray that they do not enjoy what they do. Then they are gone. Ico is left alone inside the casket. We see that strange characters are carved on it. They look much like the ones we saw on the elevator and glow with the same cold blue light. The casket also features two kneeling figures, their hands outstretched to each other. An arrow points from one to the other as though a transfer of some sort is taking place. Make of that what you will, but here I stop. Next we will look at Ico's first meeting with the princess.