Immortals Fenyx Rising: irreverent love for Greek mythology and its themes
In record time and with great skill, the Canadian team was able to return in the limelight, creating the most harmonious, interesting and fresh project of the French giant in recent years. Immortals convinced almost everyone, well beyond what could have been the rosiest expectations. Not very lucky in his market placement, he still had the opportunity to make clear his great qualities, on which an extraordinary irony stands out.
The fear of the demo
When a few weeks ago the Stadia demo allowed us to put our hands on a miniature version designed specifically for that session, we do not struggle to say that fear is it had made its way into our feelings. The inability to amalgamate the events and the perceivable untying in the dialogues, in the lines and in the interactions between one character and another, left room for doubts regarding the quality of writing of the final work. Fortunately, this risk was then averted by a noteworthy narrative level, so well thought out as to play with mythology, its protagonists and its important historical morals. During the Immortals campaign it will be easy to miss more than a smile, becoming fond of the impertinent child Athena, the rooster Ares or the forgetful Hephaestus. However, Zeus and Prometheus are the real protagonists: narrators of the story, friends-enemies for eternity, united in misfortune and constant players in a game of chess that has to do with the whole of humanity. Despite this and always maintaining their principles, they will nevertheless combine their storytelling skills to put an end to the supremacy of Typhon, the most evil and devastating of the titans.The couple that breaks out: Zeus and Prometheus
Anyone who has opened a book, a story or simply has a minimum of culture and curiosity knows the story of Prometheus and his relationship with Zeus. The titan Prometheus was the one who, in a fit of brotherhood and closeness to the human being, decided to steal fire from the gods to give it to men. In fact this move freed us all from an otherwise incontrovertible dependence on the gods, making us self-sufficient, conscious and able to grow and thrive on our own.Needless to say, the surly king of Olympus was not pleased with the move of his distant relative, condemning him to remain chained to a rock of Tartarus and to serve his sentence for eternity, while an eagle eats his liver every day which regenerates itself during the following night. Not exactly a desirable fate, we would say.
The narrative of Immortals Fenyx Rising opens precisely on the basis of this relationship, immediately giving the impression of wanting to play with its references, but not for this mocking them. The pretext for which the two protagonists clash only gives rise to the story of Prometheus and, consequently, to the very existence of Fenyx. Prometheus is in all respects the psychoanalyst of Zeus, who tries to help a shy and distrustful patient to realize his mistakes, even where his behavior is condemning him to eternal damnation. The titan's patience with the king of Olympus is almost hard to believe. Perhaps at the same time she is the daughter of an unwanted but inherited wisdom, which pushes the fire thief to make sense of history and hope for a happy ending, exploiting events to change the psychology of the most powerful of gods and the most stubborn of all. .
The neglected children
We then come to the heart of the discussion: the children of Zeus. The four gods at the center of the Immortals narrative are also the four centers of attention of a story that wants to make you smile, but with the important intention of also leading to reflection. It is no coincidence that Hermes, the god who soon meets in the adventure and who is not one of the four to be released, is actually a controversial and shy character. Immediately presented as a thief, he will soon become an ally of Fenyx, but only for the purpose of returning to his comfortable position as an Olympic, certainly not out of a particular love for his brothers and sisters. In this sense, his figure serves to immediately introduce the negative and interested aura that surrounds the whole world of the gods - which we could approach in a broad sense to the powerful of our society - and which transforms Fenyx into a expendable creature, exploited by all, even from his brother, forgetting the greatness of his deeds. Only Prometheus continues to praise him, friend of humanity and great deus ex machina of all history.Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Ares and Athena each live, in spite of themselves, a fate induced by the demon Typhon who in some way seems to recall a sort of Dantesque retaliation. The first, a splendid woman, is transformed into a tree, unable to show her graces and, indeed, only transformed into a shrewish spinster. Hephaestus, god of fire and forges, has lost his memory, forgetting the indecent treatment he received from his family, but turning into an automaton with little conscience and intelligence. Ares, the great god of war, has lost all ambitions as a fighter, turning into a cowardly rooster now a shadow of himself. And to conclude Athena, goddess of wisdom, returned to being a spoiled and selfish girl.
It is evident that all their positions and characters are built on the very clear and defined idea of making people smile. However, this does not exclude that the narrative subtext strongly points to make us reflect, to highlight some important problems of our society: starting from the influence that the family and sociological context creates, up to the consequences of actions and traumas that can change us deeply. It is in this sense that Fenyx's story, put together by Prometheus, slowly pushes the king of the gods to pass from the certainty of his position as an impeccable father, to reconsider and reconsider his actions, until the consequent collapse and awareness of the his mistakes.
In this sense Immortals Fenyx Rising acquires another level of reading, which we greatly appreciated and which is paired with a lively and hilarious writing, succeeding where great comedy wants to succeed: teaching by making us reflect .
