Talking Ico: Part 2 - The Mistress of the Keep

What we have got so far along the story are lots of facts and little by way of explanation. We do not know why Ico almost got sacrificed in the crypt, only that he in fact did. (By now we know better than to believe the excuse that horned children are ill omens.) We do not know why the castle is crammed full with puzzles, only that it in fact is. We do not know why the girl was imprisoned in the cage, only that she in fact was. We do not know how she can open the gates, only that she in fact can. And we do not know why the ghouls want her, only that they in fact do. These questions will largely be put off until the climax, but in today's segment we at last get the first glimpse of an answer.

The children's meandering journey through the ruins of the castle brings them to a great multi-leveled courtyard. Here a fierce battle ensues. If I recall right the fight must have gone on for a half-hour in my first run. The creatures come after the pair in such numbers that we cannot help but wonder if there is something special about this place--something the enemies want to keep the children away from. We can fight them to the last or we can save time and effort by running to the idol gate. This is a good place to mention that opening an idol gate destroys all nearby enemies. An intriguing morsel of information, this. The demons haunt the castle, but they appear powerless against the magic which operates that castle and which responds to the girl's presence. There is something at work here that is far superior to the demons. And the girl has access to it, is able to activate it, is able to use it--say it however you want. It is strange that she who can wield a power greater than the demons' is helpless in defending herself against them. One more thing for us to ponder until we have a clearer picture of the mystery.

As soon as the door is open, the girl rushes in ahead of Ico. It is the first time she has done anything of the sort. He follows her in and finds a colossal open gate. It is the very same he saw but could not use in the prologue. Gleeful for a moment, he is dismayed next to see the doors begin to drag themselves shut. He grabs his companion's hand and runs for it. She trips, and falls down. When he turns to help her up he is astonished to witness a dark figure, a woman, materialize behind her. The woman addresses the fallen girl in their speech. We infer therefore that she too is an inhabitant of the castle. Translated, her first words are "Come back, Yorda."

The girl's reaction to the stranger is telling. She returns no answer. She looks terribly dejected--she makes no attempt to pick herself up, and she keeps her face averted. In fact she has not once glanced back since falling, as one might be expected to if someone popped out of thin air not three steps behind her. She does not look back because she knows without looking precisely what has happened. She knows without looking precisely who stands behind her. It was perhaps inaccurate to say she is dejected. She is resigned. She has done something she was not supposed to do, and now she has been caught.

Let us take a closer look at the dark stranger who has mortified the poor girl so. Clearly no ordinary woman, she is regal, austere, and even beautiful and dignified in an icy sort of way. She is not monstrous like the demons we have seen. Yet she does not strike us as any less dreadful. If anything she inspires deeper dread. The demons were scary, but this woman is imposing. The demons were nasty brutes, but she has got something that goes beyond nasty or brutal blazing in her stern gaze. In some ways she does resemble the demons. Or rather the demons resemble her, albeit in pale imitation. In place of their smoky loose flesh she sports a cloak of swirling, crackling black which is indistinguishable from her flesh and which engulfs all but her face. Instead of crawling out from the ground she has leapt into form like black flame igniting. She betrays no violence of demeanor as the creatures did--does not make threatening gestures, does not raise her voice, in fact does not move a finger through the interview, but simply stands there calm, erect, immovable, unassailable. She stands in authority--and therefore she is fearsome. No one understands that better than little children.

And that stranger now turns her attention to Ico. She speaks to him in his own tongue, rebuking him for dragging "her Yorda" about. She identifies herself as the girl's mother. She expresses contempt for the horned child who in her eyes has no place beside her beloved daughter. The words sadden the boy. Why, I am not going to guess. She warns him to stop his futile effort and to leave the castle, and vanishes as abruptly as when she appeared.

He runs to the girl. "I have angered her," she murmurs fearfully. The woman's disembodied voice comes then: "Yorda, why can't you understand? You cannot survive in the outside world."

And so the children are left by themselves once again, and allowed to continue their quest for freedom. The word to keep in mind here is allowed. We receive a distinct impression that the woman has decided to humor the pair for the time being, and just as she authorized that liberty she is liable to revoke it when she pleases. We are doubtless that we will be seeing her again.

Now let us consider some immediate implications of this brief, dramatic encounter. There are many, but the first two will be more than enough for today.

(1) First and foremost it is abundantly plain that this woman who claims to be the girl's mother is the proprietor of the castle. We should realize that even if we had no manual to tell us who she is. (For the game itself is quite silent on her exact identity.) We have in our memory a far superior and more persuasive authority: the stories we read and heard as children, and the images they conjured into our collective imagination. Thanks to them we need no more than a glance at the newcomer before we are able to declare, with total confidence, "That is the villain of the story."

You see, ICO is not just any story but a fairy tale. And the dark woman is not just any villain either; she is a fairy tale villain. That means she has features which identify her as such--features which we recognize instantly. Call her the queen, the evil fairy, the sorceress, the witch, or whatever catches your fancy; it does not really matter; she is all those things. Some have compared ICO's queen to well-known Disney villains, heedless that those villains are themselves derived from long-standing traditions. The queen is that mystic, dark, all-powerful antagonist in our childhood imagination who is evil and who does evil, and whose overblown counterpart is the "dark lord" in modern fantasy fiction. She is that someone responsible for the mysterious enchantment which needs to be undone. She is the queen who poisons Snowdrop; the fairy who puts Briar Rose to a hundred-year slumber; the ogre who hoards treasure in his castle and enjoys eating little children; the witch who turns young maidens into songbirds and keeps them caged; the hag who puts Rapunzel up the tower and doesn't let her out. She is an embodiment of all those classic images. That is why she feels familiar though we have just met her. We may not know her per se, but we recognize her place in the story in a heartbeat.

And just what is her place in the story? Let me see now. In some of our best- loved fairy tales, it is the villains who typically dictate the setting and the conflict. So without them there would be no adventure, much as there would have been no Second World War without Hitler. Adventure here is something of a euphemism. Ordeal probably better describes the sort of things a fairy tale hero goes through. We may therefore define the queen's breed of fairy tale villain as "the one who is responsible for the hero's ordeal." And insofar as the hero's ordeal is the substance of the tale, the villain is absolutely pivotal. Snowdrop's adventure begins only when the queen becomes jealous of her beauty and tries to have her killed. Cinderella should have had no need of glass slippers had her nasty stepmother not kept her from attending the ball. And Jack's beanstalk should have led nowhere without the ogre's castle for it to reach up to.

But this central element of the story, you see, has been thus far missing. And all of us have been wondering about its absence consciously or unconsciously. All of us have been asking ourselves "We are up against something big here-- but what the deuce is it?" So when the queen finally makes her belated entrance we immediately realize "She is the one behind it all." No further introduction is necessary. (And none is given; when the story has ended, we will still not know even her name.) We know nothing about the stranger but we understand what she means to the story. She is the queen. She is the witch, the enchantress. The castle is hers. She rules over it and always has ruled over it. She is the children's enemy. They will have to fight her. What is more, they have been fighting her.

This is also why the queen does not get much time on screen. She does not need it. That is, she does not have to show up a great deal and do many things in order for us to grasp her character. Her character is more or less complete in our imagination. We have a wealth of valid ideas about fairy tale villains already established. So all she has to do is show up once and, with her darkly majestic appearance, announce to us "I am that villain." That is why in this scene she rears her head just long enough for us to take a good look at her and promptly disappears, not to be seen again till practically the conclusion of the story. The point is that we have seen her. And now that we know she exists she automatically becomes the focal point of everything.

From here on we must reorient our queries around the queen. We no longer ask "Why were horned children to be sacrificed at the castle?" but rather "Why did the queen want them sacrificed at her castle?" Similarly not "Why was Yorda put in the cage?" but "Why did the queen cage her?"; not "Why do the creatures come after her?" but "Why does the queen send them after her daughter?" The queen has not entered the picture just now, you see. She has been at its center all along, only she was not visible until now. Hers is the face behind the hostile presence we have sensed ever since entering the castle.

(2) A fairy tale villain in the queen's particular vein is invariably the most powerful being in the tale. Not all fairy tale villains are royal or magically endowed; some are fairly humble, like a scheming maidservant or an abusive stepmother. But regardless of their status with the rest of the world, the villains always exercise godlike powers over the protagonists. They are always the ones holding all the cards--thus forcing the hapless heroes to resort to wit and subterfuge to prevail against overwhelming odds and seemingly invincible foes. The queen too holds all the cards against the children. Therefore we infer, without being told, that the castle and its maddening contraptions are her work. The wraiths that come after Yorda are under her command. She is responsible for Yorda's imprisonment. And if the pattern means anything the practice of sacrificing horned youths is likely her idea also. How can I be so sure? Honestly I can't. These are speculations, some more so than others. But I think them reasonable. A fairy tale villain tends to be responsible for all evil that is found in the story. This is because the tales, with their small cast of characters, rarely have room for two villains. They prefer a single diabolical antagonist who represents the sum of all menace to the heroes. Consider also how the pair is united in a common quest. It makes excellent sense that they should have a common enemy as well. For these reasons, among many others, I must assume that the person responsible for Ico's entombment is one and the same as she put Yorda in the cage. But we will talk more about this later.

(Remainder of this section was posted on 5 August 2003)

(3) The queen commands extraordinary magic. The castle and the legions of demons are proof enough of her capability. Able to appear and vanish at will, she seems all but free of bodily limitations. Her impeccable timing in intercepting the pair also suggests she is aware of all that goes on in her domain. That would explain why opts to humor them for now; she knows she can surprise them whenever she wants. She may have hidden herself, but she is still there watching the children's every move. She may even be enjoying it; let the stubborn lass learn her lesson the hard way if she insists on it!

(4) Suddenly we understand why the girl, Yorda, can do the things she can. She has inherited her mother's nature and is able, to an extent, to exercise a queenlike power over the castle. The idol gates are a sort of security doors; like sentries guarding their posts, they will not let just anybody pass. But in Yorda they recognize something of their mistress and so make way for her.

We recall however that Yorda is not the only one thus authorized to open the gates. There is that sword we saw in the opening sequence. If Yorda can open the doors thanks to the queen's power she inherited, would that mean the sword too wields a power akin to the queen's? Let us add that to the list of things we must come back to.

(5) Unlike her daughter the queen is fluent in Ico's language. So she is knowledgeable about the outside world. Perhaps she has, or had, ties with it. If she indeed arranged for the horned children to be brought to the castle, she certainly should have required, or coerced in any case, the cooperation of outsiders.

(6) Yorda is a sharp contrast with her mother in this regard. She is just as ignorant about her companion's language as he is of hers. We may safely guess that he is the first and only contact she has had with the world beyond the castle walls. And if we had any doubt that she wants to see that world very badly, the queen's parting words have removed it. For they say in effect "Not this nonsense about leaving the castle again! How many times do I have to tell you that you can't survive there?" So it seems the girl has in the past expressed her desire to leave the islands. I could not say if she wanted freedom because she was caged or if she was caged because she dared to want freedom. Take your pick; I do not think it makes much difference in the end.

(7) But let us spend a little time on the queen's parting words since some people have pointed to them as evidence for a particular--I believe mistaken-- reading of the ending. What does she mean that Yorda cannot survive outside the castle? She could be saying one of two things: (1) the girl physically cannot sustain her life in the outside realm like a fish that has left the waters, or (2) she is too delicate for the travail of leaving home and looking after herself. In the former she gives a fact; in the latter, an opinion. Facts are given to inform; opinions, to persuade. Which is the queen doing here, informing or persuading?

Let us consider her words again: "Yorda, why can't you understand? You cannot survive in the outside world." Without much affecting their significance we may change the words to "Haven't I told you already that you cannot survive in the outside world?" That of course means "I have told you already that you cannot survive in the outside world."

If the words are not beginning to sound familiar, let me put them next to some that should: "I've told you already you are not going to that crazy party." "We've had this talk before--you are not driving the van." "Haven't I told you a hundred times not to run with scissors in your hand?"

Our parents had their reasons when they told us these things. We were not to go to the crazy party because they feared we might drink or mix with a wrong sort of people. We were not to be trusted with the van because in their opinion we were not yet very good with smaller cars. We were not to run with scissors because they thought... actually I never quite understood why not. But all these admonitions have a common thought running through them. They all draw from the same unspoken claim: "This is for your own good." Which means "I know better than you do what is good for you." And what that really means is "I have your best interest at heart." This is what all parental admonitions boil down to.

Now when my mother issued me one of her warnings, I believed she had my best interest at heart even if I did not always agree with her assessment. But if someone kept me in confinement for years and told me that I wasn't really missing out on anything outside the prison because I could not survive there anyway--I think I might have some misgivings about her sincerity. I should think she was trying to secure my compliance.

It appears Yorda herself has reached that very conclusion. She was told more than once that she could not live outside the castle. She decided to escape anyway. Why? Because she distrusted her mother's honesty. The queen and the princess are thus divided along a very simple line: the mother says leaving home is not a viable option for her daughter, and the daughter does not believe her mother. With excellent reasons.

But that is just half the story. We will probe this subject in greater depth when we get to the ending.

(8) Now that we know who caged Yorda, we find ourselves wondering afresh why in the world the poor girl had to suffer that wretched treatment. This being a fairy tale, it could well be that she was held captive purely for the sake of being a captive--sort of like the maidens in chivalric lore who apparently have nothing to occupy themselves with except to get themselves abducted by one man-devouring ogre or another. But that does not sit right somehow. There must be a reason for her incarceration. Having completed the game we of course know it already, but supposing that we did not we could still guess it somewhat.

There are just three reasons for which people keep a person--or a thing, for that matter--locked up. The first is punishment, as in the case of a convicted felon. The second might be called containment or quarantine, where someone or something represents a danger too great to be let loose. Violent lunatics, victims of a contagious disease and, again, felons are kept confined for this reason. The last is safekeeping; when there is a valuable which one doesn't wish to let out of his hands, he might opt to lock it up--be it money, jewelry, livestock, lab rats, hostages or slaves. Therefore Yorda was caged either because she committed some offense against the queen, or because she was deemed dangerous enough to warrant confinement, or else because she represented something valuable which the queen wanted to keep near. Even with the little we know at this point in the story we need not think long to judge the most plausible scenario.

But while we are on the subject let us spare a moment for that other captive in the story. I mean the boy himself. He too was imprisoned like many others before him. And unlike with Yorda the story will not explain why they suffered thus. So with the horned children speculation is all we have got. We have our three choices: either they were punished for an offense, or they were deemed dangerous, or else they were wanted for some specific design. Which makes the most sense to you?

(9) That Yorda is the queen's daughter means of course she shares her mother's nature. This raises a disturbing implication. Let us recall Ico's mysterious vision early in the story. In it we saw a black figure emerge inside the suspended cage. Later we found Yorda in that very setting. And we were a good deal confused. We had expected to find a pitch-black creature and instead got a little girl who is so pale she all but glows. The discrepancy was left unsettled in our minds. But now we have seen the queen who is dark as midnight and able to appear out of nowhere, so much like the creature in the vision. And this woman is Yorda's mother; that is, she and the girl are alike in some essential way. We can no longer doubt the vision. The amoeba-like creature must have been Yorda. How and why the boy dreamed of her is in my opinion unimportant. The vision's significance lies in that Yorda is something besides an ordinary human. We have suspected this for some time. But it is now confirmed, and will become crucial later as we try to make sense of the ending.

That wraps up this long chapter, though almost every point made here will be brought up again later. Next I would like to discuss how this new development changes the way we look at the story. Then we will finally address the tale's climax and conclusion.