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whyfearthedarkYOUR NAME: Sofie, Sofo, Hey you!
PERSONAL JOURNAL: sofo.dreamwidth.org
E-MAIL: sofie.pettersson@gmail.com
AIM: sakuraofrureo
CHARACTERS IN TAXON: Bagoas of Susa, Wyatt Cain
CHARACTER NAME: Nuada Silverlance, crowned prince of clan Bethmoora
CANON: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
MEDIA: Movie (ignoring the "novel" adaptation so hard, not much of a fan of the movies or the comics, but I do love the character and world)
BIRTHDAY/AGE: Fandom has it he's everywhere between 4000-8000 years old, or (lol) roughly the equivalent of 40 human years
CANON POINT: Right where Hellboy kills the forest elemental ded after the troll market scene. Nuada disappears, é presto! Taxon!
WHY THIS CHARACTER AND CANON POINT?: Quite frankly, I am in a bit of an rp rut, and while I love and adore the CR I have and have had with my current/past characters, I feel like there's something missing from my smorgasbord of rp awesome. Friction. Abrasion. Tension. There is nothing worse to me than a status quo, and it feels to me like Taxon's overall CR is grinding to a halt. Most characters get along just fine, and even if they don't, most of them are polite enough or charming enough that they don't offend or slight other people.
That's all fine. Good CR is GOOD, but a bit of bad/not entirely nice CR here and there makes it so much more worthwhile. On a similar note, I want to see more Very Dark Gray Hats in Taxon: characters that don't answer to the same moral code as every hero type ever in recent films and shows. Nuada is the antagonist of the movie, but he isn't evil. He believes he is fighting the good fight, that humans are destroying the earth one parking lot and shopping mall by another, waging one meaningless war after the other, and that someone must do something before it's entirely too late. The earth will die and wither away, the humans will keep taking whatever they want with no thought spared to the consequences, and he. Is. Done. His father refuses to act, so he'll act in his stead. He'll save the earth if he has to kill every last human on the planet. The madness must stop.
And besides...not only do I want to see what he'll make of Taxon and enforced captivity/exile he hasn't chosen for himself, I want to see what Taxon will make of an anti-humanist, warrior child of the earth who sees humans as filthy, vile bags of bones and connective tissues.
I want to rattle all the cages and see what happens. I want to toss a fox in with the hens, so to speak.
PROGRAMMED POSSESSION: Two pieces of a goblin-crafted crown what is needed to control the Golden Army.
HISTORY:
On Christmas Eve, 1955, Hellboy's guardian tells him a bedtime story. It goes like this:
It is said that at the dawn of time, Man, Beast and all magical beings lived together under Aiglin, the Father Tree. But Man had been created with a hole in his heart: a hole that no possession, power or knowledge could fill, and in his infinite greed, Man dreamt of expanding his dominion over the entire earth.
The blood of many an elf, ogre and goblin were spilt in the war on Man, and King Balor, the one-armed king of the elf land, watched the slaughter with dread and despair. But one day, the Master of the goblin blacksmiths offered to build the king a golden mechanical army of seventy times seventy soldiers that would never know hunger, and could not be stopped.
Prince Nuada begged his father to agree. 'Build me this army,' the king said.
And so, a magical crown was forged, that would allow those of royal blood to command the Golden Army, if unchallenged. 'I am King Balor, leader of the Golden Army. Is there anyone who disputes my right?' And in his throne room, no one challenged his word.
So the world was changed, and the next time the humans marched, they felt the earth tremble beneath their feet, and saw the sky darkened by monstrous shapes. The Golden Army had no remorse, felt no loyalty, no pain; and King Balor's heart grew heavy with regret, so he called a truce, and divided the crown in three pieces: one for the humans, and two for himself. In exchange the humans would stay in their cities, and the magical beings would own the forest. This truce would be honored by their sons and the sons of their sons until the end of time.
But Prince Nuada did not believe in the promises of Man. It is said he went into exile, vowing to return when his people needed him most.
So the Golden Army lay dormant, locked inside the earth, waiting. And there it is to this day, awaiting the day the crown is made whole again. Silent, still and indestructible.
The movie cuts to present day, showing the real-life Nuada (as opposed to the fairy tale ditto) practicing his sword/spear fighting skills underground, in an offshoot to the New York subway. Soon a very big, very ugly-looking humanoid enters, whom Nuada addresses as Mister Wink. Mr Wink is a troll who's seen better days, having had one of his tusks broken, one of his eyes damaged and fused shut, and one of his hands chopped off (replaced by a mechanical, eject-able hand attached to his wrist by a very long chain)--
(My headcanon says Mr Wink and Nuada fought together during the war, and that they each view each other as brothers-in-arms. Mr Wink is often referred to as Nuada's companion, which isn't too misleading: Wink is Nuada's sole confidante, his co-conspirator in the things yet to come. He is Nuada's only friend and ally, and the only one who shares his moral outlook on their mission. There will be difficult decisions along the way. Lives will be lost and/or made examples of. They will have to risk everything. It will be worth it, if it saves the world from destruction.
Furthermore, I have Thoughts regarding what Nuada got up to during his many, many, many years of exile. I imagine he stayed on the sidelines, watching human society across the world from a distance while constantly weighing the course of human history and exploitation according to his own inner calipers. He made a point of learning the lingua franca of the day and age (Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and most recently English) to better understand the goings-on outside of the increasingly diminishing fairy realm. He learned goblin crafts, such as iron- and clockwork, having been fascinated with their skills since seeing the Golden Army for the first time. He also made a point of keeping himself updated on everything to do with human society and culture, along the lines of knowing one's enemy. However, during his exile he has preferred the company of other fairy folk, such as trolls, goblins and ogres. Some time ago - twenty, thirty, fifty years - he came to live in New York City, making his presence felt if not outright known around the troll market under the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Nuada has procured goods (tooth fairies and a facehugger-esque tentacle'd critter, both kept in two containers bearing the royal seal which is only used in war), and together they set off in the night to wage war upon humankind: they are going to steal the first piece of Balor's golden crown from the humans. On the night of September 26, in what turns into a massacre, Nuada unleashes a host of tooth fairies and facehuggers on a poor, unsuspecting high end auction at Blackwood's of New York, on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Out of the seventy people at the auction, they leave no survivors.
Their next move is to take the remaining pieces of the crown, kept by King Balor himself and Nuada's twin sister, Nuala. The prince enters the high council, as is his right even after his long exile. There is one condition: that no arms be brought into the hall. Nuala persuades her brother to release his weapon. Knowing he'll have words with his father and that they are unlikely to see eye to eye, he is prepared to fight. After a short exchange in Gaelic, he is deemed a traitor and condemned to death. He's left with no choice but to take what he wants by force. He asks his sister if she is at peace with her king's verdict, and she replies that she is. "Then," Nuada says, "Death it is." He disarms one of the attacking royal guard, kills/incapacitates the entire royal guard and his own father, taking the second piece from his dead, petrified body.
Seeing her brother's treason Nuala flees with the third and last piece of the crown. Nuada sends Wink to retrieve her, using any means necessary to get the final piece. Unfortunately for Wink, Hellboy and his team have stumbled upon the princess and, seeing Wink as a threat, Hellboy barely misses a beat when disposing of him. Wink's mechanical hand gets caught in a grinding wheel...thing at the troll market, and he's crushed like so much waste. Hearing of this, Nuada is enraged, and goes up to the surface to confront Hellboy.
In the ensuing battle with the BPRD team, he unleashes the last of the forest gods on them, taunting Hellboy to kill or save it. He argues that Hellboy doesn't belong with the human race, that he has more in common with the fae and would do well to join them. He could be a king if only he made the right choice - the humans will turn against him, Nuada says. It is only a matter of time.
Hellboy kills the last surviving forest god, Nuada vanishes from the scene; the princess escapes, seeking refuge with the BPRD, but only because her brother lets her go.
And thus, Nuada fades from existence in the Hellboy universe, and fades into Taxon carrying two pieces of a very pretty but frustratingly useless crown, and a blade that can kill immortals dead.
PSYCHOLOGY/PERSONALITY:
If Nuada was a human lord and war veteran who had once sided with his people against a horrifyingly destructive force, consequently gone into exile until a time when his gut feelings about the current truce came true, and then come back to use whatever means necessary to overcome evil, well... Then he would have been a hero, by most of Hollywood's standards. In fact, his character isn't so different from your generic good guy/hero stereotype. He's a good man, scarred by his experiences in a seeming endless war. He cares deeply about his family (and in fact his entire race) and time and again he shows remorse when you least expect it. He's a mask of harsh lines and ambiguous emotion, a bona fide warrior...and then all of a sudden a glimpse of something shows through. He knows he has to make tough calls, hard decisions that would normally qualify as high treason, but he makes these decisions because no one else will. In that sense, he is a hero type. But he isn't a human fighting alien invaders or foreign religious fanatics - he is the non-human threat, ready to wage war on an unsuspecting population. What's worse, he is ready to go so far as to commit genocide. That is his goal. If push comes to shove, he'll kill every human man, woman and child on the planet - to save it.
In my mind, that old proverb about good intentions paving the road to Hell sums him up to a 't'. The only thing he really wants is to save the earth, and he's grown increasingly frustrated with his father's laissez-faire approach, and he isn't satisfied with what the humans themselves are doing to save their planet (it's hinted that he's aware of Greenpeace and the like, but unimpressed). He's run out of options, and finds himself forced to take a stand: the human greed knows no bounds, and the magical folk lead a marginalized existence underground and out of sight. He feels compelled to right the wrongs of humanity once and for all. That in itself isn't a problem. It's his belief that the ends justify the means (at any cost) that takes him down such a dark road.
In the movie, one of the themes is the balance between darkness and light, and how the two can never really be separated. Nuada is a literally battle scarred, very bitter elf who will wage war if necessary. His twin sister Nuala is his polar opposite. She is quiet, open, a pacifist who only wants to maintain the truce between the fairy world and the humans. She is light, even in appearance. As bright as her eyes are, as deep is the darkness around Nuada's. He's ruthless when needed, she would never raise a hand against another. They're yin and yang, never truly apart even when separated from each other. If he bleeds, so does she, and vice versa. If one dies, the other dies as well. This bond goes so deep as to the one being aware of the other's emotions, spirits, even their general location. Nuada tells his sister at one point that their father has attempted to shield her heart from him - but he knows her too well to let that stop him reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.
Despite the oppressive vibes you get from that scene - Nuada is terribly imposing, even belittling to his sister and she is obviously terrified of him - he loves her more than anything. I reckon that, as they were children, they were the only friends either one of them had. They were the best of friends, sharing everything, and both of them dreaming of an eternal peace under the Father Tree. When they grew older, the war with the humans tainted Nuada. The more he fought, the more disillusioned he became of the concept of peace between the races, the more bitter and mocking of his childhood visions of the future. Nuala remained the soft, graceful, beautiful one, who through the force of their bond silently and without complaint bore every scar Nuada took in battle.
When Nuala sides with their father regarding the truce, Nuada makes the difficult choice to extricate himself from the equation. It is obvious to him that he and his sister are not so alike as they once thought. He leaves her behind, because he knows in his heart it is the right thing to do. He'll need to grow stronger, faster, better. He'll need to be prepared for the day when the humans once more push too far.
More than anything, I feel, he is a guardian. He can be benevolent and graceful, even loving, but there is a time and place for everything. Nearly the entire span of the movie, there's no time for leniency or grace, or even love. He is on a mission, and he won't let anyone compromise it, not even his own flesh and blood.
Guillermo del Toro says Nuada is the last warrior of his kind, and while the humans are pushing and pushing the fairy world to the very outskirts of society, the prince essentially says 'No more'. He and his sister are two sides of one coin. They represent one person who is divided by the two sides of their conscience, says Anna Walton who played Nuala. To see how he manages without his other half, as it were, will be interesting, to say the least.
(Both actors who portrayed Nuada and Nuala have commented on there being an incestuous relationship between them. This isn't too overt on screen, but it is there in the Very Wrong vibes you get when Nuada breaks into the BPRD to persuade his sister to give him the last piece of the crown. I'm not particularly a fan of incest!fiction, though it does have its place in fandom. I can and will hint the bejeebus out of stuff if we ever get a Nuala, but that's it.)
POWERS/ABILITIES:
(+ His mother's tongue is ancient Gaelic, but he's studied several languages since then, to keep on top of who rules the human world, and how (HI THERE MISTER LONG, SIR))
+ Immortal elf warrior. Need I elaborate further? Yes. Yes, I do. See the minuses down below.
+ Impervious to fire
+ Really ridiculous acrobatics/martial arts skills.
+ Blades. He can handle any bladed weapon he can get his hands on, preferring daggers and short katana-like blades - and if anyone could make slaughter a beautiful thing (morbid thought, that), he would be the guy. He has a small curved sword that can morph itself into a spear. Its tip can break off and lodge in someone, and every attempt at removing it will cause it to elongate, inflicting more damage. Said tip regenerates on the blade itself. I don't even know. Fairy/goblin magic?
+ Clockworks - with the right tools and materials, he can make the most exquisitely beautiful, horrendously dangerous little trinkets/containers/thingamabobs.
+ The ability to appear and disappear at will. I wouldn't go so far as calling it teleporting (wrong genre), but Nuada can fade from one place in an instant, and appear somewhere else just as easily. He is an elf, one of the fae, and he walks a different path.
(+ His sister has the ability to touch people and 'know their hearts'. If they share innate abilities, that would suggest that Nuada also has this ability. But as he isn't a touchy feely kind of guy, and he never pulls that stunt, I'm just gonna parenthesize the heck out of this one)
- His sister bleeds, he bleeds. Any wound inflicted on her is inflicted on him as well. If anyone should app Nuala, this will actually mean something.
(Yes I know he's ridiculously overpowered and seemingly indestructible. The only way Hellboy and his posse 'won' the final showdown was because Nuala sacrificed herself, thus killing her brother. Boy don' quit. However)
- He can be injured. He's just as susceptible to physical injury as anyone else - he's just so fast and so limber and so thoroughly trained that he can evade almost every blow. But he isn't perfect. He isn't immune to pain or most of the elements (most notably not fire). He could be shot or stabbed or drowned, and he would very likely die a horrible death as consequence. In Hellboy, there's a distinction between immortality and death. Immortal creatures can and do die - but should they live a peaceful life and not get caught up in Hellboy's rampage, they can and do live forever. HB immortals don't ever die of old age, but they can die - given the right amount of force.
Non-canon weaknesses:
Since I love the fact the movie draws heavily from European folklore (with a bit of Asian flair), going so far as to base Nuada around a Celtic mythological figure called Nuadha the Silver-handed, I am very keen on giving him some traditional fairy folk weaknesses.
- An unbroken circle of salt (around your house, around yourself) will keep him from entering/coming near you
- Cold iron binds and repels him
- The sound of bells (not just church bells) is physically painful
ARRIVAL POST:
ADDITIONAL SAMPLE:
The night is long and dark for those that do not belong, but for those of us who choose her embrace she is a tender mistress. Her face is the moonbeam dancing like ripples over a darkened lake and the stars, her embellishment. What are we but humble shadows next to her gentle light? What are we but wraiths when she turns her face from us; babes cradled in a mother's arms when at last she smiles down on us once more?
There was a time when I was a philosopher; a time when the elves had no need for warriors. I was young then, and all too besotted with life. 'And then one day', as all fairy tales read when taking a turn for the inauspicious, 'war darkened the lands and turned the Father Tree to withering'. My juvenile romance with nature came to an abrupt halt, as I watched thousands upon thousands of men tear from us all what innocence we had. We fought not just for our lives, but for honor, for what was rightfully hours, for the lands of our peoples, for Aiglin. I fought and did not stop for breath until I had forgotten how to draw it.
The truce, what sent me into the night to watch from afar, left a bitter aftertaste that lingers to this day. What are we if not magic? What are we but sweet promises and nightmares turned flesh? What are we that the humans have not made us? One does not provoke a wounded beast, nor drive it towards the edge and expect it to fold, to throw itself to the ground in sudden obedience.
One does not tame the roaring river without consequence.
I am the wraith; I am the beast; I am the river. I shall not bow. Not to the humans. Not to my captors. I am the dark, and you shall fear me.
PERSONAL JOURNAL: sofo.dreamwidth.org
E-MAIL: sofie.pettersson@gmail.com
AIM: sakuraofrureo
CHARACTERS IN TAXON: Bagoas of Susa, Wyatt Cain
CHARACTER NAME: Nuada Silverlance, crowned prince of clan Bethmoora
CANON: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
MEDIA: Movie (ignoring the "novel" adaptation so hard, not much of a fan of the movies or the comics, but I do love the character and world)
BIRTHDAY/AGE: Fandom has it he's everywhere between 4000-8000 years old, or (lol) roughly the equivalent of 40 human years
CANON POINT: Right where Hellboy kills the forest elemental ded after the troll market scene. Nuada disappears, é presto! Taxon!
WHY THIS CHARACTER AND CANON POINT?: Quite frankly, I am in a bit of an rp rut, and while I love and adore the CR I have and have had with my current/past characters, I feel like there's something missing from my smorgasbord of rp awesome. Friction. Abrasion. Tension. There is nothing worse to me than a status quo, and it feels to me like Taxon's overall CR is grinding to a halt. Most characters get along just fine, and even if they don't, most of them are polite enough or charming enough that they don't offend or slight other people.
That's all fine. Good CR is GOOD, but a bit of bad/not entirely nice CR here and there makes it so much more worthwhile. On a similar note, I want to see more Very Dark Gray Hats in Taxon: characters that don't answer to the same moral code as every hero type ever in recent films and shows. Nuada is the antagonist of the movie, but he isn't evil. He believes he is fighting the good fight, that humans are destroying the earth one parking lot and shopping mall by another, waging one meaningless war after the other, and that someone must do something before it's entirely too late. The earth will die and wither away, the humans will keep taking whatever they want with no thought spared to the consequences, and he. Is. Done. His father refuses to act, so he'll act in his stead. He'll save the earth if he has to kill every last human on the planet. The madness must stop.
And besides...not only do I want to see what he'll make of Taxon and enforced captivity/exile he hasn't chosen for himself, I want to see what Taxon will make of an anti-humanist, warrior child of the earth who sees humans as filthy, vile bags of bones and connective tissues.
I want to rattle all the cages and see what happens. I want to toss a fox in with the hens, so to speak.
PROGRAMMED POSSESSION: Two pieces of a goblin-crafted crown what is needed to control the Golden Army.
HISTORY:
On Christmas Eve, 1955, Hellboy's guardian tells him a bedtime story. It goes like this:
It is said that at the dawn of time, Man, Beast and all magical beings lived together under Aiglin, the Father Tree. But Man had been created with a hole in his heart: a hole that no possession, power or knowledge could fill, and in his infinite greed, Man dreamt of expanding his dominion over the entire earth.
The blood of many an elf, ogre and goblin were spilt in the war on Man, and King Balor, the one-armed king of the elf land, watched the slaughter with dread and despair. But one day, the Master of the goblin blacksmiths offered to build the king a golden mechanical army of seventy times seventy soldiers that would never know hunger, and could not be stopped.
Prince Nuada begged his father to agree. 'Build me this army,' the king said.
And so, a magical crown was forged, that would allow those of royal blood to command the Golden Army, if unchallenged. 'I am King Balor, leader of the Golden Army. Is there anyone who disputes my right?' And in his throne room, no one challenged his word.
So the world was changed, and the next time the humans marched, they felt the earth tremble beneath their feet, and saw the sky darkened by monstrous shapes. The Golden Army had no remorse, felt no loyalty, no pain; and King Balor's heart grew heavy with regret, so he called a truce, and divided the crown in three pieces: one for the humans, and two for himself. In exchange the humans would stay in their cities, and the magical beings would own the forest. This truce would be honored by their sons and the sons of their sons until the end of time.
But Prince Nuada did not believe in the promises of Man. It is said he went into exile, vowing to return when his people needed him most.
So the Golden Army lay dormant, locked inside the earth, waiting. And there it is to this day, awaiting the day the crown is made whole again. Silent, still and indestructible.
The movie cuts to present day, showing the real-life Nuada (as opposed to the fairy tale ditto) practicing his sword/spear fighting skills underground, in an offshoot to the New York subway. Soon a very big, very ugly-looking humanoid enters, whom Nuada addresses as Mister Wink. Mr Wink is a troll who's seen better days, having had one of his tusks broken, one of his eyes damaged and fused shut, and one of his hands chopped off (replaced by a mechanical, eject-able hand attached to his wrist by a very long chain)--
(My headcanon says Mr Wink and Nuada fought together during the war, and that they each view each other as brothers-in-arms. Mr Wink is often referred to as Nuada's companion, which isn't too misleading: Wink is Nuada's sole confidante, his co-conspirator in the things yet to come. He is Nuada's only friend and ally, and the only one who shares his moral outlook on their mission. There will be difficult decisions along the way. Lives will be lost and/or made examples of. They will have to risk everything. It will be worth it, if it saves the world from destruction.
Furthermore, I have Thoughts regarding what Nuada got up to during his many, many, many years of exile. I imagine he stayed on the sidelines, watching human society across the world from a distance while constantly weighing the course of human history and exploitation according to his own inner calipers. He made a point of learning the lingua franca of the day and age (Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and most recently English) to better understand the goings-on outside of the increasingly diminishing fairy realm. He learned goblin crafts, such as iron- and clockwork, having been fascinated with their skills since seeing the Golden Army for the first time. He also made a point of keeping himself updated on everything to do with human society and culture, along the lines of knowing one's enemy. However, during his exile he has preferred the company of other fairy folk, such as trolls, goblins and ogres. Some time ago - twenty, thirty, fifty years - he came to live in New York City, making his presence felt if not outright known around the troll market under the Brooklyn Bridge.)
Nuada has procured goods (tooth fairies and a facehugger-esque tentacle'd critter, both kept in two containers bearing the royal seal which is only used in war), and together they set off in the night to wage war upon humankind: they are going to steal the first piece of Balor's golden crown from the humans. On the night of September 26, in what turns into a massacre, Nuada unleashes a host of tooth fairies and facehuggers on a poor, unsuspecting high end auction at Blackwood's of New York, on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Out of the seventy people at the auction, they leave no survivors.
Their next move is to take the remaining pieces of the crown, kept by King Balor himself and Nuada's twin sister, Nuala. The prince enters the high council, as is his right even after his long exile. There is one condition: that no arms be brought into the hall. Nuala persuades her brother to release his weapon. Knowing he'll have words with his father and that they are unlikely to see eye to eye, he is prepared to fight. After a short exchange in Gaelic, he is deemed a traitor and condemned to death. He's left with no choice but to take what he wants by force. He asks his sister if she is at peace with her king's verdict, and she replies that she is. "Then," Nuada says, "Death it is." He disarms one of the attacking royal guard, kills/incapacitates the entire royal guard and his own father, taking the second piece from his dead, petrified body.
Seeing her brother's treason Nuala flees with the third and last piece of the crown. Nuada sends Wink to retrieve her, using any means necessary to get the final piece. Unfortunately for Wink, Hellboy and his team have stumbled upon the princess and, seeing Wink as a threat, Hellboy barely misses a beat when disposing of him. Wink's mechanical hand gets caught in a grinding wheel...thing at the troll market, and he's crushed like so much waste. Hearing of this, Nuada is enraged, and goes up to the surface to confront Hellboy.
In the ensuing battle with the BPRD team, he unleashes the last of the forest gods on them, taunting Hellboy to kill or save it. He argues that Hellboy doesn't belong with the human race, that he has more in common with the fae and would do well to join them. He could be a king if only he made the right choice - the humans will turn against him, Nuada says. It is only a matter of time.
Hellboy kills the last surviving forest god, Nuada vanishes from the scene; the princess escapes, seeking refuge with the BPRD, but only because her brother lets her go.
And thus, Nuada fades from existence in the Hellboy universe, and fades into Taxon carrying two pieces of a very pretty but frustratingly useless crown, and a blade that can kill immortals dead.
PSYCHOLOGY/PERSONALITY:
If Nuada was a human lord and war veteran who had once sided with his people against a horrifyingly destructive force, consequently gone into exile until a time when his gut feelings about the current truce came true, and then come back to use whatever means necessary to overcome evil, well... Then he would have been a hero, by most of Hollywood's standards. In fact, his character isn't so different from your generic good guy/hero stereotype. He's a good man, scarred by his experiences in a seeming endless war. He cares deeply about his family (and in fact his entire race) and time and again he shows remorse when you least expect it. He's a mask of harsh lines and ambiguous emotion, a bona fide warrior...and then all of a sudden a glimpse of something shows through. He knows he has to make tough calls, hard decisions that would normally qualify as high treason, but he makes these decisions because no one else will. In that sense, he is a hero type. But he isn't a human fighting alien invaders or foreign religious fanatics - he is the non-human threat, ready to wage war on an unsuspecting population. What's worse, he is ready to go so far as to commit genocide. That is his goal. If push comes to shove, he'll kill every human man, woman and child on the planet - to save it.
In my mind, that old proverb about good intentions paving the road to Hell sums him up to a 't'. The only thing he really wants is to save the earth, and he's grown increasingly frustrated with his father's laissez-faire approach, and he isn't satisfied with what the humans themselves are doing to save their planet (it's hinted that he's aware of Greenpeace and the like, but unimpressed). He's run out of options, and finds himself forced to take a stand: the human greed knows no bounds, and the magical folk lead a marginalized existence underground and out of sight. He feels compelled to right the wrongs of humanity once and for all. That in itself isn't a problem. It's his belief that the ends justify the means (at any cost) that takes him down such a dark road.
In the movie, one of the themes is the balance between darkness and light, and how the two can never really be separated. Nuada is a literally battle scarred, very bitter elf who will wage war if necessary. His twin sister Nuala is his polar opposite. She is quiet, open, a pacifist who only wants to maintain the truce between the fairy world and the humans. She is light, even in appearance. As bright as her eyes are, as deep is the darkness around Nuada's. He's ruthless when needed, she would never raise a hand against another. They're yin and yang, never truly apart even when separated from each other. If he bleeds, so does she, and vice versa. If one dies, the other dies as well. This bond goes so deep as to the one being aware of the other's emotions, spirits, even their general location. Nuada tells his sister at one point that their father has attempted to shield her heart from him - but he knows her too well to let that stop him reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.
Despite the oppressive vibes you get from that scene - Nuada is terribly imposing, even belittling to his sister and she is obviously terrified of him - he loves her more than anything. I reckon that, as they were children, they were the only friends either one of them had. They were the best of friends, sharing everything, and both of them dreaming of an eternal peace under the Father Tree. When they grew older, the war with the humans tainted Nuada. The more he fought, the more disillusioned he became of the concept of peace between the races, the more bitter and mocking of his childhood visions of the future. Nuala remained the soft, graceful, beautiful one, who through the force of their bond silently and without complaint bore every scar Nuada took in battle.
When Nuala sides with their father regarding the truce, Nuada makes the difficult choice to extricate himself from the equation. It is obvious to him that he and his sister are not so alike as they once thought. He leaves her behind, because he knows in his heart it is the right thing to do. He'll need to grow stronger, faster, better. He'll need to be prepared for the day when the humans once more push too far.
More than anything, I feel, he is a guardian. He can be benevolent and graceful, even loving, but there is a time and place for everything. Nearly the entire span of the movie, there's no time for leniency or grace, or even love. He is on a mission, and he won't let anyone compromise it, not even his own flesh and blood.
Guillermo del Toro says Nuada is the last warrior of his kind, and while the humans are pushing and pushing the fairy world to the very outskirts of society, the prince essentially says 'No more'. He and his sister are two sides of one coin. They represent one person who is divided by the two sides of their conscience, says Anna Walton who played Nuala. To see how he manages without his other half, as it were, will be interesting, to say the least.
(Both actors who portrayed Nuada and Nuala have commented on there being an incestuous relationship between them. This isn't too overt on screen, but it is there in the Very Wrong vibes you get when Nuada breaks into the BPRD to persuade his sister to give him the last piece of the crown. I'm not particularly a fan of incest!fiction, though it does have its place in fandom. I can and will hint the bejeebus out of stuff if we ever get a Nuala, but that's it.)
POWERS/ABILITIES:
(+ His mother's tongue is ancient Gaelic, but he's studied several languages since then, to keep on top of who rules the human world, and how (HI THERE MISTER LONG, SIR))
+ Immortal elf warrior. Need I elaborate further? Yes. Yes, I do. See the minuses down below.
+ Impervious to fire
+ Really ridiculous acrobatics/martial arts skills.
+ Blades. He can handle any bladed weapon he can get his hands on, preferring daggers and short katana-like blades - and if anyone could make slaughter a beautiful thing (morbid thought, that), he would be the guy. He has a small curved sword that can morph itself into a spear. Its tip can break off and lodge in someone, and every attempt at removing it will cause it to elongate, inflicting more damage. Said tip regenerates on the blade itself. I don't even know. Fairy/goblin magic?
+ Clockworks - with the right tools and materials, he can make the most exquisitely beautiful, horrendously dangerous little trinkets/containers/thingamabobs.
+ The ability to appear and disappear at will. I wouldn't go so far as calling it teleporting (wrong genre), but Nuada can fade from one place in an instant, and appear somewhere else just as easily. He is an elf, one of the fae, and he walks a different path.
(+ His sister has the ability to touch people and 'know their hearts'. If they share innate abilities, that would suggest that Nuada also has this ability. But as he isn't a touchy feely kind of guy, and he never pulls that stunt, I'm just gonna parenthesize the heck out of this one)
- His sister bleeds, he bleeds. Any wound inflicted on her is inflicted on him as well. If anyone should app Nuala, this will actually mean something.
(Yes I know he's ridiculously overpowered and seemingly indestructible. The only way Hellboy and his posse 'won' the final showdown was because Nuala sacrificed herself, thus killing her brother. Boy don' quit. However)
- He can be injured. He's just as susceptible to physical injury as anyone else - he's just so fast and so limber and so thoroughly trained that he can evade almost every blow. But he isn't perfect. He isn't immune to pain or most of the elements (most notably not fire). He could be shot or stabbed or drowned, and he would very likely die a horrible death as consequence. In Hellboy, there's a distinction between immortality and death. Immortal creatures can and do die - but should they live a peaceful life and not get caught up in Hellboy's rampage, they can and do live forever. HB immortals don't ever die of old age, but they can die - given the right amount of force.
Non-canon weaknesses:
Since I love the fact the movie draws heavily from European folklore (with a bit of Asian flair), going so far as to base Nuada around a Celtic mythological figure called Nuadha the Silver-handed, I am very keen on giving him some traditional fairy folk weaknesses.
- An unbroken circle of salt (around your house, around yourself) will keep him from entering/coming near you
- Cold iron binds and repels him
- The sound of bells (not just church bells) is physically painful
ARRIVAL POST:
ADDITIONAL SAMPLE:
The night is long and dark for those that do not belong, but for those of us who choose her embrace she is a tender mistress. Her face is the moonbeam dancing like ripples over a darkened lake and the stars, her embellishment. What are we but humble shadows next to her gentle light? What are we but wraiths when she turns her face from us; babes cradled in a mother's arms when at last she smiles down on us once more?
There was a time when I was a philosopher; a time when the elves had no need for warriors. I was young then, and all too besotted with life. 'And then one day', as all fairy tales read when taking a turn for the inauspicious, 'war darkened the lands and turned the Father Tree to withering'. My juvenile romance with nature came to an abrupt halt, as I watched thousands upon thousands of men tear from us all what innocence we had. We fought not just for our lives, but for honor, for what was rightfully hours, for the lands of our peoples, for Aiglin. I fought and did not stop for breath until I had forgotten how to draw it.
The truce, what sent me into the night to watch from afar, left a bitter aftertaste that lingers to this day. What are we if not magic? What are we but sweet promises and nightmares turned flesh? What are we that the humans have not made us? One does not provoke a wounded beast, nor drive it towards the edge and expect it to fold, to throw itself to the ground in sudden obedience.
One does not tame the roaring river without consequence.
I am the wraith; I am the beast; I am the river. I shall not bow. Not to the humans. Not to my captors. I am the dark, and you shall fear me.
