Lore thread

[Jewish Candy]

Indeed, but I never understood that fact. Blue lums are released spirits and/or lifeforce (whatever)... So why does Rayman use them to breathe underwater (or some alien fluid) It all seems a little bit weird...

Blue lums aren't lifeforce - they're the 'breaths' that anyone will ever breathe during their lifetime, which are then released at death. A bit like glowing oxygen thingies... or the equivalent of oxygen... So Rayman needs them to 'breathe' underwater. There are loads of flaws in the whole concept really; surely Rayman has his own he can use? Does the water 'waterify' the blue lums? Osmosis? Sephiroth?! BOOBIES??!!

[ParadoxJuice]

Rayman wasn't created by Polokus, so perhaps he lacks blue lums? It would also explain why he absorbs red lums (he's not alive! At least, not in the same way the rest of Polokus' dreams are) and perhaps green lums.

[spiraldoor]

Rayman wasn't created by Polokus, so perhaps he lacks blue lums? It would also explain why he absorbs red lums (he's not alive! At least, not in the same way the rest of Polokus' dreams are) and perhaps green lums.

Speaking of Green Lums, what the hell are they? The Knowledge of the World ignores them entirely. I suppose they must be 'newer' that the Yellow/Blue/Purple/Red ones, perhaps being artificially created like the Silver Lums are. They seem to regenerate their collectors when they die, assuming they have some life-force left. Maybe Red Lums are like fuel for Green Lums' regeneration? Maybe they only work for Rayman, like the Silver Lums?

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

I wouldn't rule out influences from other cultures. Isn't the concept of the four classical elements Greek?

(Axel, Umber, Foutch, Grolem 13 = Water, Earth, Fire, Air)

And Michel Ancel has said that he uses Russian, Chinese and Celtic fairytales as inspiration for his games, so there's those to consider as well.

[Jewish Candy]

True that, the Celtic influence is certainly noticeable. But the concept of 4 (with the secret 5th one?) elements is universal. You can find it in Chinese, Japanese, Indic, Central American, even Nordic cultures.

My thoery is that the green lums are a yellow/blue hybrid. That's like 'knowledge' + 'life'... 'life knowledge', or memory. The green lums remember where you last popped your clogs and restore you.

[spiraldoor]

My thoery is that the green lums are a yellow/blue hybrid.

Are you suggesting that Lums are capable of sexual reproduction?

[Jewish Candy]

No. Though I didn't NOT not say that.
I meant they schmidged, combined, etc.

[spiraldoor]

No. Though I didn't NOT not say that.
I meant they schmidged, combined, etc.

If each Green Lum was comprised of a Yellow Lum and a Blue Lum, wouldn't that screw up the number of Yellow Lums in the game?

Lums can definitely ‘schmidge’ together in some circumstances though. Super Yellow Lums are made of five normal ones, and the Heart of the World is made of one thousand of them. Presumably these ‘Lum colonies’ (?) can split apart from each other and re-merge...

In the Sentinel minigame, you can kill the Knaaren...

I don't think that we should consider those minigames as canon.

Why not? I think they perfectly complement the events depicted in the game.

[Tulio]

What's the "rank" of Ly? Is there any fairies "employment structure"(sounds weird)?

[Jewish Candy]

Spiral: They could be SPACE LUMS . There no definitive knowledge of how many yellow lums are actually 'out there', beyond the world.
Tulio: Ly is... kinda different from other fairies we see in the Rayman games. She's like a elf, compared to the pixie-like Ludivs in R2 and R3. And Betilla was limbless (unless this new RO nymph IS Betilla, messing the canon up again... ) Perhaps Ludivs 'EVOLVE' like pokemon into Ly-like fairies?
All fairies are given the term 'emissaries of Polukus'. i don't know if there are different ranks, as such. Would love to, though.

[spiraldoor]

(This post was written before JC’s one showed up.)

We know that the fairies are the ‘emissaries’ of Polokus, and we know that Betilla was responsible for protecting the Great Protoon. I would be inclined to assume that Betilla and Ly are high-ranking fairies, while Ludivs are low-ranking ones. The really tiny fairies we see in the Fairy Council seem to be very low-ranking indeed, with one of them saying ‘I’m the cleaning fairy!’.

I lean towards Betilla being the greatest of the fairies, but Polokus is definitely their ‘boss’.

I wonder what happened to those Flying Blue Elves from Rayman 1...

[Jewish Candy]

The Fairy Council seems to be some kind of commune, but it only has Ludivs and those 'cleaning fairies' in it. If they're the ones making up the Council, no wonder the rabbids invaded.
Do fairies mature and leave the hive, as such? I envisage them to be a bit animalistic, especially regarding Ly's feline traits and Betilla's nose in some artworks.

Another possibility is that there are different breeds of the fairy species. Ludivs do have a separate name, defining them among the fair folk . And Blue Flying Elves have their own name too. So do these new 'nymphs'. Betilla was limbless, which could mean yet another memetic variation. Perhaps these different 'strains' of fairy-ness have different roles, rather than having a homogenous, caste-like society?

I personally dislike the idea of Betilla being the most powerful fairy, but it seems the most logical. Bah humbug.

[EvanEDavies]

On the subject of artificial lums, how exactly are they created? In rayman 3 there are 2 kinds of red lums. The ones that fly towards you when you make a strange face at a black lum, but then there are these red lums that don't really look like lums at all. They don't have wings, they just sit around then re spawn when they are needed. What's up with that? They actually look a little bit like the classical atomic structure, yknow, electrons orbiting around a nucleus, only that would be one damn big atom........ What do people have to say about that?

[Haruka]

On the subject of artificial lums, how exactly are they created? In rayman 3 there are 2 kinds of red lums. The ones that fly towards you when you make a strange face at a black lum, but then there are these red lums that don't really look like lums at all. They don't have wings, they just sit around then re spawn when they are needed. What's up with that? They actually look a little bit like the classical atomic structure, yknow, electrons orbiting around a nucleus, only that would be one damn big atom........ What do people have to say about that?

I personally also thought in that thing a lot the first time I played R3, and I still think on the same subject. The winged Red Lums are much more preetier to look at than just red spheres of light with random small spheres gravitating around them.

[Jewish Candy]

The 'black lum' red lums appear to be alive, somehow - Rayman comments on 'how happy they seem' at the end of the game. They don't respawn when you lose health; I figure they're a bit like mystical bugs, floatin' around and healing you.

The 'atomic' red lums, however, don't show any sign of life. They seem a bit more like... items. I'm personally not even sure if they are actually red lums, perhaps they were created from red lum energy? The fact that they respawn indicates that the 'health' which leaves Rayman after each hit must accumulate in the spot where we see these 'atomic' red lums.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they're either THE GHOSTS OF RED LUMS (if that's even possible...) or accumulations of healing energy which are referred to as 'red lums' by the people of the planet, because of the creatures they resemble.

[Haruka]

Now I remind something about Rayman 1. Was Skops only in bad mood when Rayman awaked him on Skops' Stalactites level? On the credits of R1 PSX you can see Skops happy, on the sea, resting on the Dragon Boat from the Eraser Plains' theather. Does also this means that he knows Space Mama or just he goes sometimes to the Picture City region?

[PluMGMK]

The orbs might be lums that only got "half-turned" by André so he left them there.
The most stupid thing is that the first cutscene where a black lum is converted shows it being turned into one of those orbs.

[EvanEDavies]

hmmm interesting...... By the way JC that would be funny if lums could sexually reproduce, imagine what you would get if you crossed a black lum with a silver lum!

[EvanEDavies]

Ohhhhh also something else I found strange about the lum system - in the final battle with reflux, he shoots what looks like our artificial red lums out of his big stick, but something is different about them..... They're gold D: maybes these are golden lums, and they're so powerful that rayman cannot absorb them and when he tries to they hurt him? My mind is spinning

[Jewish Candy]

Aw, your poor, poor brain. Though I'm pretty sure those gold orbs are just accumulations of powerful, damaging energy - in the same way that the 'atomic' red lums are accumulations of healing niceness.

Still, I like that idea. Perhaps all forms of energy are derived from some kind of lum, or in fact FORMED of lums. Regarding the crossbreeding between silver and black varieties... that's disturbing.

[Haruka]

Ohhhhh also something else I found strange about the lum system - in the final battle with reflux, he shoots what looks like our artificial red lums out of his big stick, but something is different about them..... They're gold D: maybes these are golden lums, and they're so powerful that rayman cannot absorb them and when he tries to they hurt him? My mind is spinning

Just because of being gold and red it doesn't mean they are lums! It's more than obvious it is a damaging energy! Since when absorving Lums is painful?