Lore thread

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spiraldoor
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Lore thread

Post by spiraldoor »

This is the lore thread which I have been compelled to create. We will discuss... lore.

I think the first item on the agenda is the supposed invincibility of the Knaaren?
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Rsandee »

The Knaaren seem to make energy shields, possibly they gained this power from The Leptys.
I think that Gumsi is a messager of The Leptys, that's why he has the scepter that Reflux later uses to gain it's power.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by spiraldoor »

I have noticed many parallels between the Teensies and the Knaaren.

Teensies were created by Polokus; Knaaren were created by the Leptys (and Polokus only has power on land, while the Leptys's powers seem more sky-oriented)
Teensies are very small; Knaaren are very tall
Teensies live aboveground; Knaaren live underground
Teensies tend to be good; Knaaren tend to be evil
Teensies are light in colour; Knaaren are dark
Teensies are intelligent and civilised; Knaaren are vicious and barbaric
Teensies all appear to be male; Knaaren all appear to be male
Teensies have a king, the Grand Minimus; Knaaren have a king, Gumsi
Teensies and Knaaren are well-known for their hatred of each other; the Teensies seem fearful of the Knaaren when discussing them with Rayman, and the walls in the tunnels of the Knaaren bear engravings which seem to show Knaaren capturing Teensies and preparing them as food.

Bonus parallel: Razoff looks kind of like a Teensie, and Bégoniax looks kind of like a Knaaren.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Xenon »

I think ordinary Knaaren and Reflux use different sources of protection. Reflux's shield is removable by electricity (and those cluster things) but the shields of ordinary Knaaren soldiers seem indestructible.

Whatever the case, any Knaaren without a shield would be mortal because Reflux was defenceless in his first battle with Rayman.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Jewish Candy »

Thankyou, Spiral! It lives! :D
Yours is a good point - the Teensies and Knaaren seem to be the antithesis of each other. Explains the animosity.
Though I wouldn't call the Knaaren barbaric. Their murals really are something compared to the Teensies bland, repetitive carvings and glassworks, and they do have a pseudo-alphabetic script which I would LOVE to reconstruct, by the way; the vague writing-like etchings in previous Rayman games (presumably the Teensies') appear pictographic, which is actually a more 'primitive' writing system. Yeah, we can link all this back to texturing and dummying, but this is a lore thread and we shall do no such thing. :mefiant:

The Knaaren design, colouring, voicing and physique is quite sandy and harsh, and completely at odds with the rest of the species in Rayman's world (which appear, I must add, to have amphibious roots) with their grueish hues and gentle curves. We could attribute this to their environment, but I personally think that this supports the "all the gods of all the worlds" concept. There are loads of deities out there, all discussing and bargaining and making deals... perhaps Leptys and Polukus had such a deal, which involved Leptys putting a bunch of his own creations on Polukus' world - and possibly vice-versa? :? Anyway, I figure that the hatred between the two species is due to fundamental differences like these. No doubt we'd find it hard to have aliens among us. :mrgreen: District 9, anyone?

The fact that Rayman can never actually punch Reflux (it's either the staff or the sceptre in his back) or his fellow Knaaren makes me think that those magic barriers are a natural defence mechanism, in the same way that Teensies have the supposedly inherent ability to create magic doors. The Teensies probably can't comprehend how the 'barbaric' Knaaren are able to summon up protection like that, and therefore consider them invincible.

That was long... but so much fun. I hope this thread doesn't die. :winkgrin:
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Spanex »

spiraldoor wrote:Teensies were created by Polokus; Knaaren were created by the Leptys (and Polokus only has power on land, while the Leptys's powers seem more sky-oriented)
One hitch about the creation thing...The knowlegdge of the world (F1 in Rayman 2) explains that everything except Rayman and the lums were dreamt by Polokus. This means including the Knaaren. It's possible they prefer to worship another god (for example, some egyptians rather worshipped another god instead of Ra) And even though Leptys does exsist, he could have just taken the claim when he saw the Knaaren worshipped him.

Talking about Ra, I think the Leptys may be inspired by him. Only instead of being 'the sun', he causes eclipses whenever he flew by.

Edit: Razzof looks more like a 'grub' from the tv series if you ask me. o_o
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Jewish Candy »

Spanex wrote: Talking about Ra, I think the Leptys may be inspired by him. Only instead of being 'the sun', he causes eclipses whenever he flew by.
I'd say he's based more on Zu, from Mesopotamian mythology. For a start, they are both portrayed as birds... :D they are both sky gods and 'fathers' of demonic races (well, the Knaaren are pretty scary :mryellow: ).
Actually, the story of Zu draws parallels with the story of Reflux. They steal a powerful artifact from their masters (Enlil and Gumsi respectively), gaining unimaginable power, and retreat to a mountaintop where they battle a lone hero, before finally falling. The style of mural in the Knaaren tunnels resembles art from around that area, too.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by El Dango »

Teensies all appear to be male; Knaaren all appear to be male
I don't think we should jump to any conclusions on that one.

About the Knaaren being invincible, I think the teensies were just overreacting. They are incredibly strong though. Rayman was able to hurt Reflux the first time because of the stick, and the second time because the Lockjaw is so fucking awesome that it can suck out magical power. :P
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Spanex »

I've never heard of Zu... but the stories are very similar indeed.
El Dango wrote:
Teensies all appear to be male; Knaaren all appear to be male
I don't think we should jump to any conclusions on that one.
Indeed. There are plenty of games with "male only" races, but I think the female variant was just never introduced.

Take ourselves as an example. Back in the middle ages, women were 'tools' of men. This theory would fit with the Knaaren, considering their 'barbaric' nature. They would probably keep them hidden in their caves.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by spiraldoor »

Spanex wrote:
El Dango wrote:
Teensies all appear to be male; Knaaren all appear to be male
I don't think we should jump to any conclusions on that one.
Indeed. There are plenty of games with "male only" races, but I think the female variant was just never introduced.
I wasn't trying to make a definitive statement. I was merely observing that we've never seen a female Teensie or Knaaren, and it's a strong enough parallel to be worthy of note. At the very least it indicates that they're both extremely patriarchal societies.
Spanex wrote:
spiraldoor wrote:Teensies were created by Polokus; Knaaren were created by the Leptys (and Polokus only has power on land, while the Leptys's powers seem more sky-oriented)
One hitch about the creation thing...The knowlegdge of the world (F1 in Rayman 2) explains that everything except Rayman and the lums were dreamt by Polokus. This means including the Knaaren. It's possible they prefer to worship another god (for example, some egyptians rather worshipped another god instead of Ra) And even though Leptys does exsist, he could have just taken the claim when he saw the Knaaren worshipped him.
Or it could be that the Leptys is the offspring of Polokus, or descended from him in some other way, which would make the Knaaren an indirect creation of Polokus. Most mythologies have a pantheon of adulterous and polygamous deities, some of them having hundreds of children by various mortals, monsters, other deities and so on. Zeus may be the most famous example. If the family tree of the gods of Rayman's universe is anywhere near as complex as this abomination, it's very easy to imagine the Leptys as a descendant of Polokus in some way, either through flesh or through dreaming.

I think Jano may also be a god (he quite reminds me of Hades, and he wears a hat identical to Polokus's). The Great Spirit Palmito also seems to be a god (like Polokus, he was sleeping, and he is powerful enough to wipe out an entire tribe of Teensies and imprison their ghosts in a celestial tower so that would not not wake up 'other sleeping spirits').

Speaking of gods producing children reminds me of a very important piece of lore which I'd all but forgotten. Apparently it was once posted on an official Rayman 2 website, but has long since been removed (and I only know about it because I found it here):
The Rayman Psychopath wrote:Did You Know

That Polokus is the father of the Teensies? In the old Rayman2 site it was stated that Polokus was the father of the Teensies when he married a beautiful woman called... I forgot her name. But anyway, when she saw how "ugly" her sons were, she got so distressed she ran away and disappeared. This was the cause for Polokus's long, deep sleep.
(!!!???!!!???!!!)
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Tulio »

spiraldoor wrote:
The Rayman Psychopath wrote:Did You Know

That Polokus is the father of the Teensies? In the old Rayman2 site it was stated that Polokus was the father of the Teensies when he married a beautiful woman called... I forgot her name. But anyway, when she saw how "ugly" her sons were, she got so distressed she ran away and disappeared. This was the cause for Polokus's long, deep sleep.
(!!!???!!!???!!!)
Sound ridiculous as hell... What was the url to this old R2 website? Maybe it's still archivised on some internet time machines or something. :)
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Jewish Candy »

spiraldoor wrote:If the family tree of the gods of Rayman's universe is anywhere near as complex as this abomination, it's very easy to imagine the Leptys as a descendant of Polokus in some way, either through flesh or through dreaming.
Rayman's world is based on aboriginal and native american ideologies - so the whole 'family tree' thing might not be the most accurate description, methinks.
spiraldoor wrote:I think Jano may also be a god (he quite reminds me of Hades, and he wears a hat identical to Polokus's). The Great Spirit Palmito also seems to be a god (like Polokus, he was sleeping, and he is powerful enough to wipe out an entire tribe of Teensies and imprison their ghosts in a celestial tower so that would not not wake up 'other sleeping spirits').
Perhaps Jano is taking style lessons from Polukus :wink: But that's a good point. He's ismentioned as Polukus' accountant - maybe he's a 'fallen' god, and has to pay back his debts? :shock:

And, Teensies being the kids? Uuuuuhhhhhhuhuhhhh...... could be figurative. I've looked at a link to the old Rayman 2 website, and there doesn't seem to be anything suggesting that. (The link is floating around on PC, don't ask where.)
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Cairnie »

Well even in the webarchive much of the very VERY old Rayman 2 site is unclickable as far as I know now, shame I didn't have access to it at the time because the shitty Dreamcast browser I had to use back in 2000 didn't support flash. ;A;
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Jewish Candy »

Really? I managed to click on stuff a couple of months ago...
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Cairnie »

I'm talking about the earliest one that was supposedly up in 1998 but whatever.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Henchman1028 »

In the Sentinel minigame, you can kill the Knaaren...
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Jewish Candy »

StaceyW wrote:I'm talking about the earliest one that was supposedly up in 1998 but whatever.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about too... someone's actually hosting it still in some random corner of the internet. But meh, we know the whole 'teensies is teh babiez' thing is lies.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Sabertooth »

Henchman1028 wrote:In the Sentinel minigame, you can kill the Knaaren...
I don't think that we should consider those minigames as canon.
BestXIII wrote:The knaarens are very big shitass! :grrrrrr:
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Henchman1028 »

Sabertooth1000000000 wrote:
Henchman1028 wrote:In the Sentinel minigame, you can kill the Knaaren...
I don't think that we should consider those minigames as canon.
Good point.
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Re: Lore thread

Post by Holy Crap »

I'm thinking the Knaaren have a weakness to heat and light*, and that their supposed 'invincibilty' stems from their protective shields**, which in the light they are no longer able to produce. That would explain why they live underground, and seems to fit in with the idea of the Leptys - their supposed "father" - being the "Bringer of Night*". It also explains why Rayman can defeat Reflux in the Arena - the arena is surrounded by lava***, disabling Reflux's shield and allowing Rayman to take advantage of this vulnerabilty.
Then, in the Final battle before he enlarges himself, he is no longer surrounded by lava and his shield returns. However, using the Lockjaw**** and inputting lots of energy (electricity is hot, it produces light, something like that)***** Rayman temporarily disables the shield once again leaving Reflux vulnerable.
After that, Reflux starts abusing the power of the Sceptre when he enlarges himself and I think his reliance on that power is what gives him the new weakness. Note that only by htting the sceptre - the source of the power he relies on - itself can you hurt Reflux in the remainder of the battle.
All in all, I think that the term 'invincible' was a slight exaggeration referring to the combination of their natural toughness and their magical shields.

*It's also possible that they are not so much weakened by Light as powered by darkness, hence the Leptys 'bringing night' would be powering the Knaaren.
** They are still naturally very tough though, clearly.
***Possibly so that the Knaaren can actually fight each other and not just helplessly batter at each other's magic shields. However, the shields appear to be able to be summoned at will, and they could fight each other by just choosing not to use shields, hence the lighting would be to stop them from cheating.
****The only flaw in this is that you can't use the Lockjaw to break the shields of the other Knaaren in the tunnels, but this could be attributed to the additional light of the area (which is much brighter than the tunnels) or even the energy of Reflux's own attacks which are very energetic themselves.
*****The same can also be said of the large glowing bullets fired from the vehicle in the final part of the battle, which also break his shield (which is focussed entirely around his sceptre).
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