Villainpedia: Dormin or Wander | Shadow of the Colossus

Dormin and Wander share a special bond in Shadow of the Colossus, but Dormin has long been considered the villain... why is this? Let's find out the truth behind these characters and this incredible game's story.

00:00 - Light & Dark
04:17 - A Meeting
12:58 - A Shadow of the Past
20:46 - Live Spirits
22:12 - The Boy
26:34 - Colossi
34:19 - Action & Consequence
48:41 - So..?
56:16 - Connecting the Thoughts
1:00:53 - Legacy

thank you to @10mingaming10 for the wonderful play through footage

#shadowofthecolossus#dormin#wander#villainpedia#lore#explained

[Ghostcharm]

So happy to say this video was sponsored by a project my older brother is the main artist of - Live Spirits. An innovative system of live stream character assets that react to subs, follows and more. Check out the link down below and support my family!

[EmberSynth]

I wanted to bring up another line of characterization for Dormin in that they say "We have borrowed the body of this warrior..." when possessing Wander. I found it interesting that they say "Borrow" as if they are intending to return his body at some point. As well as the respect in using the term "Warrior" to describe the scraggly little boy they have grown to respect. I genuinely think that while Dormin may have used Wander and Mono's bodies as vessels, they may not have ever intended for either to die or be harmed.

[tdkey]

It would be a tragic irony if the cruel fate that Mono was given was the resurrection of Dormin. Wander and Mono's people read the stars or something and saw that she was fated to bring forth the return of Dormin. She was then sacrificed to try and prevent this fate from occurring, which of course causes Wander to defy his people and bring back his loved one. In this case I'd say there is no villain but the ones who sealed Mono's fate in the first place. A misreading of fate once again the cause of great tragedy.

[Kobukseon]

The thing I love about Dormin is he never lied to Wander. He upheld his end of the bargain and also told Wander BEFORE he went on his quest he'd have to pay a heavy price. Wander is the one who brushed it aside, because he knew he had crossed past the point of no return the second he stole the sword and came to those lands. You could even say Dormin should be applauded for his principles, because even though he is bound to one space, he still is willing to be upfront with Wander.

[windhelmguard]

another point about your theory:
whenever dormins energy enters wander, he gets stronger, he is invigorated, he gets a longer health bar and more stamina to fight on with, so your point that the yang enters wander checks out.

[blackfox]

Here's my personal interpretation of Dormin, the Forbidden Lands, etc:

So the Forbbiden Lands were once overseen by a deity of life, renewal, and rebirth. This god being the patron allowed the land to be abundant with vitality and life, and there were 16 (possibly more) guardians that not only defended the land, but tended to it as well. One day, the denizens of the Forbidden Lands went from worshipping this god to craving its power, and so they began constructing a tower to try and reach this god. However, unlike the Tower of Babel, they actually succeeded, taking this god's power and all amalgamating into one singular being: Dormin. The neighboring nations, seeing this atrocity, invaded the Forbidden Lands and--using the sword--sealed away their power into the sixteen guardians.

Now as for his plans with Wander, I interpret Dormin's relative indifference as that of a patient immortal being. Wander possibly isn't the first, nor was he expected to be the last, individual who came seeking Dormin's power. Dormin knows that one day he'll be set free, but until then he's more than willing to wait it out and humor any mortal that comes seeking his aid.

Now there are three things that are to take note of: The pool, the sword, and the tower above the temple. To me, these three things essentially embody the three aspects of Dormin. The tower signifies life, the sword signifies death, and the pool signifies renewal. By throwing the sword (death) into the pool (renewal) you're not just destroying Dormin, but allowing him to be reborn. Meanwhile, the peak of the tower, the closest spot to where the previous god once lived, is the richest spot of life in the valley. Thus sacrificing Dormin, using Wander as a vessel, has allowed all the people who were once part of the Forbidden Lands to be reborn and start over.

[Tnch]

The villain of Shadow of the Colossus is Emon.
Emon holds a position of power within the tribe and from Emon we learn that Mono was put to death, "sacrificed", because of a "cursed fate". It's reasonable to assume that Emon holds at least partial responsibility for Mono's death and and I believe he was the one who probably the one to decide Mono's execution in the first place seeing how he so quickly commands Wander's death by the end of the game. And who is the last fight in the game? Emon and his men, after they had already dealt a killing blow to Wander.
We're never told what Mono's "cursed fate" was, it could have been that her "cursed fate" was to be part of Dormin's return, which would be the irony in Emon killing her. Because Emon seeing that Mono would lead to the return of what's basically a godlike entity, he would kill her to prevent it only to find that killing her was the catalyst to send Wander on a journey to bring her back with Dormin's help.
Everything is Emon's fault. Wander, Mono and Dormin all are victims to his fear. Because instead of trying to find a way to prevent Mono's "cursed fate" he chose to remove what he thought was the chance of it happening.

[JarethS]

I've always loved this game, especially it's ending. On one hand, I don't think Dormin's indifference necessarily makes him a neutral party in all this - my read was always just that he had no need for things like manipulation and lies simply because Wander did not care about the consequences and would do what was asked regardless. The only thing in question was whether or not Wander could even succeed, as he's likely not the first to try.

On the other hand, we do very clearly see that even in defeat Dormin held up his end of the bargain, even if we the players aren't aware of the context or consequences of it all. I'd always thought that the change in Dormin's voice wasn't necessarily because a part of him was going to Mono, but that one part of him (this shadow we see Wander containing and bringing back) was growing stronger and overwhelming the other. Maybe it was for good reason parts of Dormin were sealed away, and that this 'balance' we hear him begin with but that crumbles away over time is caused by our actions. It might be the way he was meant to be, or it might be part of what keeps him shackled and weak.

If anything though, Emon feels like the true villain of this story, being responsible for what happened to Mono and setting all of this in motion. But again, without context we can't even be sure of that. I think that is ultimately the best part of this game - that every player who sits and thinks about what we've seen can come to a different conclusion about the story as a whole.

Wonderful video as always Ghost!

[sojournertaylor]

My take is that Dormin is a deity of a rival tribe that was conquered /integrated by the tribe that Lord Emon and Wander belong to.
Fearing the power of this angry god, Emon’s predecessors sealed its power into the colossi which embody the people/animals of the forbidden lands that were once populated.
Mono is descended from a bloodline related to that old kingdom and is sacrificed as a consequence. They were possibly discriminated against by the village Wander and Mono are from.

[theradioactiveplayer]

Ok so here's what I think:
Dormin is a comingling of the egos of once-living souls, a bit like the crystal in Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Its layered voice, and the smaller shades which join with it, are a reflection of the fact that Dormin is the bundled-together power of numerous ancient dead. Clearly, it is in this way powerful enough to grant wishes (such as, or even exclusively, the resurrection of the dead), which immediately suggests the reason for why it was bound and locked away: the temptation of asking to use that power, even in exchange for a terrible price, was too great in the eyes of the ancient civilisation's leaders (they were probably scared of political opponents who can never really die), so Dormin was shackled, severed, and locked away in a dead land - one from which it can take no more power.

I would hazard that Dormin can only subsume the spirits of animals, but it's possible that this even narrows right down to just humans, hence the nuclear option of abandoning an entire nation and getting the fuck out of dodge, permanently. As such, I think the Colossi are man-made fetishes, possibly created using Dormin's own power (Dormin doesn't really seem to have any thoughts on resurrecting Mono, other than giving Wander a fairly earnest warning), then later used to wrest the many melded souls from Dormin's single consciousness into 16 different parts - each corresponding not only to the place they would be set down, but also the character of the spirits stored therein.

A point on the accord, and Dormin's own character. First, Dormin has every right to be pissed off with the ancient civilisation, and with the people who maintain their original stance on its existence: there is no evil in what Dormin does, nor inherent good. It only grants requests, exacting an appropriate price - such as the case of Wander, where I think the reason he became an infant is due to his life being conferred unto Mono. It would make sense, in an equilibrium way, that the only way the Mighty Spirit who controls life and death can give life is by taking it away from someone else; so, Mono now has as many years to live as Wander gave her by returning to extreme youth. Hell, they might be linked in some way now, but that's going a bit further than I'm willing to chance.

I don't really have any idea how Dormin may have come to be, but the power that glowing water pool and the sword together unleashed makes me think the ancients were fiddling with the border between life and death - perhaps, in need of more power for their experiments, they pooled their resources and created the fledgling Dormin (that may have even been a person's name, or it could be a symbolic name for the connection between the realm of mortals and immortals _a lá_ tower of babel between heaven and earth). Dormin, as a creature made of spirits and intimately connected to the other side, had the power to pull souls from out of death, but only for an appropriate price, so as to not disturb the balance of nature - thus earning its connotations with Life and Nature, as well as with Death. Unfavourably (so, neutrally) disposed towards its creators, Dormin would have been seen as a major threat (think Frankenstein here) because of the unpredictable variables of a) having a bit of free will, and b) not giving a shit about the nation's leaders' plans.

So, Dormin got locked up, split up, and sealed away in a dead land. The fact nothing _at all_ lives out on those vast plains now means the ancients literally picked up their stuff and, on their way out, _slaughtered everything bigger than a fish in the entire kingdom._ Now I cannot make any proposals as to the morality of Dormin, or Wander, but I *can* say that fucking butchering an entire ecosystem because you're not mature enough to treat your own creation like a fucking person is... disgusting. Any hardship that ruling class endured in their exodus from their homeland is utterly deserved, to the last iota of misery. The normal people likely had no say in it, or lacked context, so they probably suffered immensely for nothing. It's this that makes me think Mono was likely killed because her fate was to be the lynchpin in the reconstitution of Dormin - and the ruling class, having learned absolutely nothing in the THOUSANDS OF YEARS since they left the Forbidden Lands, just went and sacrificed her like "yep that's definitely solved all our problems. hey what's for dinner?" So, naturally, Wander stole her body and the ancient sword, traipsed off to the FL, killed him a few giant soul-binding fetishes, and got his wish granted. Incredible. Simple. Hell, Dormin even spoke to him with honorifics, which it was under no obligation to do, even for the sake of manipulation. Even when POSSESSING WANDER, Dormin still refers to him as 'this warrior', so I'm inclined to believe Dormin respects the unjudgmental desperation of the young hero.

I don't know how the sword was made, but considering as reuniting it with the magical pool led to all errant souls (besides Mono's) being dragged back to the other side, I'm gonna guess that the sword is the first thing Dormin procured for the ancients - _or, _ the sword was what the ancients used to make Dormin. Either way, that blade has some kind of connection to primordial Light, and it does not count as a 'mortal weapon' (as per Dormin when it first spots the blade), so I'm going to guess that it is made from the same light which pulled Dormin back into the otherworld. The light it beams out - which is not dependent on the sun - certainly hints at the possibility.

Finally, the secret garden. This is a mystery which, I think, can only be solved with the idea brought up in relation to Mono, that the ancients could somehow read fate. If they could, then they would build the garden - possibly prior to the creation of Dormin - to house and rehabilitate the people making use of its power. Little did they know, their construction of the place would be Dormin's final little 'fuck you', as it's the only place they didn't cull into dust, and the place where Dormin's rescuer, and that rescuer's ward, are destined to live out the first stages of their reborn life, just as the first ancients who made bargains would have done.

[monroerobbins]

30:47 it might explain why there are no other mobs attacking you: if there were, you’d just think of the Colossi as hostile bosses and the minions around them, instead of lonely giants wandering around, beasts that don’t harm you until you harm them: it makes me wish we could’ve learned the thoughts and feelings of these beasts, like a final breath or thought before they die.

37:56 oh my GOD, I remember crying so hard at this scene, it broke my heart, it just proved to me that fate wasn’t smiling on Wander, and… that poor horse didn’t deserve it.

And my argument is that Dormin isn’t evil, but neither is Wander. Wander has good intentions, and he doesn’t wish to bring chaos to the world. Dormin has power over life and death, and he isn’t quite evil: he’s kinda pagan in a way.

[connorrowe]

I really like the idea of dormin not being complete even at the end of the game. Perhaps the reason we only hear the masculine side once wander is possessed because in order to bring mono back dormin instilled her with the feminine aspect. This would tie in well with the traditional viewing of masculinity as aggressive and femininity as nurturing, as wander slays the colossi and becomes this almost avatar of darkness, mono is given life. A violent, tearing transformation. A gentle, quiet awakening.

[pickle]

I think an interesting "villain" you could cover would be the reapers from the Mass Effect series. Mass Effect 1-3 are some of my favorite games of all time, and I think the reapers are a fascinating antagonist. They are an ever present threat and the way they are presented is unique. Commander Sheppard is one of the few people in the galaxy that is aware of their true purpose, but it takes time to piece together, and basically no one believes you until it's too late which I think is pretty spot on for how it would go in real life lol... Please let me know what you think! It would be awesome to hear you cover them!

[sirtofbaggins]

I truly believe Emon was the villain in this tale. He had mono killed and hunted down wander to stop him from returning Dormin to the world. Wander knew he was taking a one-way trip, and Dormin was upfront about the deal being made. Return mono to life, and he never said wander would die. He needed a vessel for his power, so why destroy his vessel? "We are dormin, " meaning the half he put into wander and the half into mono. Emon killed Wander and only then did Dormin act. Until then, wander while weak was still himself, and dormin was already released. They each held up their end of the bargain. Mono revived, and Dormin was released. Emon was the only one in my mind who acted selfishly out of fear of Dormins return.

[Percaning]

Babe wake up, ghostcharm made a video about the best game ever made.

[edenevie]

The Tower of Babel was built by a unified people all speaking the same language, right? Then brought down by god through division, like how Dormin was divided up into the colossi.
So when Dormin tries to be reunified but does so through a pact that divides them into Yin and Yang, it makes sense they've repeated the same mistake and ended up sealed away again as two opposite entities this time, Mono coming back from death as she is and Wander becoming reborn anew, both containing half of this almost-god

[daltonfreeman]

Something interesting I've noticed about Dormin is his seeming role as a Cthonic Psychopomp.

Many Cthonic deities are not directly worshipped or even spoken of by their supposed true names for fear of getting their attention. While his name being a reverse of Nimrod has an explanation, it's still a form of obfuscation surrounding his name.

And Psychopomps are those that guide the dead to the afterlife, whatever kind of afterlife that is. The fact that Dormin can restore life, bring a soul back to a body, is a reflection of that idea.

[baseballviolation]

Been watching for quite a while now and I think this is genuinely the best video you have made yet. The breakdown of if Dormin can even really be considered a villain was fantastic while really elevating the format of this series and I love the way you interpreted the story to tie a beautiful bow on the video. Really impressive stuff, I love the passion you clearly put into this.

[phantombarru]

this game feels like living through an ancient mesopotamian myth. The quest itself is so simple and human, wanting to see a lost loved one again, but the factors and forces in play are so obscure and eldritch in nature that we will never fully understand what truly happened and what it could all mean

[adsrickhenlenix]

This is one of my favorite games of all times!! I've played it for countless hours when I was a teen, and even more countless hours when Blue Point remade the game from the ground up. -Chefs kiss- I've always thought that the colossi is a container for Dormins power, and Dormin is an old god that the people rose up against and imprisoned Dormin. I've never seen any good or evil in this, just a moral gray. Also you're brothers sprites are amazing. I wish him luck with his business.