Hellblade — Overcoming the Dark Rot

Senua’s struggle against her own demons can teach us a lot about mental illness, empathy and perseverance.

Hermes J. Pappas
Aug 23, 2017 · 16 min read

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Please play the game before you read this.

NOTE: This article contains quite a few psychological and psychiatric terms. Other than my own experience with psychotherapy and mental illness and part of my studies including Cognitive Psychology, I am deeply interested in the subject and so am bound to maybe succumb to relevant language games throughout this. I have tried my best to include links for those not familiar, so I hope this will not detract from the reading experience.

Mental illness, society and media

We are not amongst ancient Celts or Vikings anymore. Most of us are not living our lives based on tales of deities, curses and demons; and yet we might as well be when it comes to how backwards we still are when it comes to mental health. Medically and psychotherapeutically, there have thankfully been some advances, even though there is still much to learn. Socially, things are still quite grim. The subject is still taboo and there is lasting stigma around it, especially in regards to specific conditions and disorders. Politically, especially in the United States, mental illness is used as an excuse for gun violence and never spoken of again until the next scandal arises.

There is clearly work to be done to improve the public’s perception and acceptance of mental illness. Books (as sadly little-read they are nowadays) have been the first medium to examine and normalize mental illness. Music, through its melody and lyrics, has also contributed to this. Movies and TV shows, as a more advanced and younger medium, probably reach a wider audience and have the capacity to be more directly engaging due to their audio-visual nature. The youngest and most advanced medium to show us how to increase empathy, however, is that of video-games. Incorporating all of its predecessors (writing, music, sound and visuals) and adding the interactive element to them all, its true potential is still widely untapped, both mechanically/technologically and in terms of its emotional impact on the player.

Even in the underworld, her flame burns bright.

Ninja Theory shows us how it’s done

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and the team behind it, Ninja Theory, are a prime example of video games’ unique ability to immerse, engage and evoke empathy and understanding. The job the team has done is nothing short of exceptional. Focusing on the effects of psychosis in particular, they enlisted the help of mental health experts and also took detailed accounts of the experiences of people who have experienced or live with psychosis. They also deeply involved them in the development process, even having them play-test and give their feedback throughout the game.

This balanced approach ensured the team both empathized with the patients themselves and also gained a more scientific and intellectual understanding of psychosis and its comorbidities. The results shine, and I recommend watching the documentary about the making of this wonderful piece of interactive art. To call it a “game” in this instance seems somewhat shallow. There are mechanics, yes, and there is an overarching goal and smaller objectives on the way, but this particular title is deeply immersive, extremely story-driven, and very emotional.

This article is dedicated to how Hellblade engages and immerses the player and how it allows them to empathize with Senua’s ordeals and her mental illness. It’s not a game review, although certain aspects of the game design will be brought up in order to discuss the points above. Although a game review is something I might entertain in the future, all I can say on that front for now is: buy it, play it, share it. It deserves it.

Maddening symmetry.

Myth and delusion

Symbolism abounds in Senua’s story, and wisely so: this achieves a dual purpose. Not only does it allow for a (nightmarishly) playful exchange between supernatural reality and psychotic delusion; it also reflects on the current state of mental illness in society and the way it is handled by reflecting on how poorly it was understood and managed in the past. Explaining what we now consider normal mental and psychological phenomena through myth, curses and demons was not uncommon in ancient or even medieval cultures. Sadly, as mentioned in the preface, not much has changed, even though we may have done away with some of the superstition on a surface level. We still see people with mental illness as crazy, cursed or dangerous, fearing the unknown instead of trying to understand it.

The backdrop for Senua’s tragic and harrowing story is Dillion’s (her beloved’s) death, after which she seems to have her psychotic break. She finds him brutally murdered after being tortured by the Northmen (Vikings). His corpse is hung up for display in a gruesome variation of the Blood Eagle ritualistic murder.

After this, she swears to get Dillion’s soul back from the underworld. One of the voices in her head, the most bellowing and menacing one (which we learn corresponds to memories of her father), informs her that “In the head of his corpse lies the seat of his soul, so you must carry his vessel to bring him back home”. Senua’s psychosis and the multiple voices that come with it being fairly internalized from the beginning of her story, she accepts this reality without questioning it and sets to complete her quest.

Every enemy Senua faces could be seen as a manifestation of her psychosis, but the doubt sown in the player’s mind is, once more, a brilliant way to weave her tale. Are we actually facing demons, deities and spirits? Is Senua truly cursed, and does she have “the gift of sight”, as it is described, or is it all simply part of her delusion?

The most powerful realization, I think, is that it really doesn’t matter. By controlling Senua (while still not being Senua, as not only does the player control her through a third person camera but is also addressed as one of the voices by the rest of them every now and then), we empathize deeply with her, and see her reality directly through her eyes. We not only experience unique cognitive and neurological phenomena through her (fractured images, sudden darkness enveloping everything, luminous and distorted colors in the environment, all experiences shared by actual people with psychosis); we also vividly experience her painful flashbacks, a phenomenon often reported by people who suffer from PTSD (which itself can cause psychosis). We live through her pain, her madness, her anger, her determination, her doubt and her fear. We hope when she hopes and feel joy when she gets even the briefest reprieve from the constant psychological (and seemingly physical) torture.

In the end, this is her reality. This is as real to her as everyday life is to any of us, and we’re experiencing this with her. In that way, I believe, we are (unlike the rest of the voices in her head, which can sometimes be cruel, unhelpful and mocking), squarely on the side of the only two people in her life who ever seemed to treat her kindly and with understanding: her mother, and Dillion.

The light in her darkness.

“A little help. A little hope.”

Throughout Senua’s journey, we see rock formations resembling her mother’s face scattered in the scenery. When focusing on them, her mother’s voice (and later on, her face) take over Senua’s mind with (mostly) kind and soothing messages and memories. Her mother, a healer, also had the “gift”, meaning she most likely was the source of Senua’s hereditary illness. Much like Senua, she was misunderstood and feared, and ended up being burnt alive in front of her own daughter’s eyes. She understood her like no one else could, and explained to her that even though her father could not see the world the way she did, there was nothing wrong with her doing so.

She framed Senua’s mental illness in the scope of what we would today call neurodiversity, which is an even more controversial subject than mental illness itself. My opinion on this matter is that while a different neurological make-up can make for some very interesting differences in perception and cognition which may even be useful artistically or scientifically, we should not forget that most of the conditions which could cause such a difference also come with severe issues and drawbacks; some of them even cause a certain handicap to the person affected by them, whether that is mental, physical, or both. This subject is too complex to address here, however, so please allow this small interjection to be enough.

Dillion’s voice and visions of him speaking to and being next to Senua arrive later on in the story, but they are a true revelation, and definitely a part of the game that moved me on a personal level. We see that Dillion loves and truly accepts Senua as she is. Not only does he decry her father’s horrible behavior towards her (yelling at her, physically abusing her, trying to have her remain house-bound as much as possible and telling her she is cursed), he actually also reinforces the idea that she has done nothing wrong and even that there is nothing wrong with her. Dillion tells her he sees her “gift” as a part of who she is, just one more aspect of the person he loves and cherishes.

Having been a sufferer of depression and anxiety disorder myself, this depiction of true love and acceptance towards a mentally ill person touched me deeply. I am lucky to be married to a wonderful woman who has been there for me throughout all the highs and lows. She always loved me and kept telling me I’m a good person, a person worth loving, a talented person, an intelligent person, one with value and one whom people would miss were he to be gone from this world — even when I believed none of those things myself.

This kind of love Dillion has for Senua is further evident in the way he keeps encouraging her whenever he makes an appearance in her visions. He tells her to keep on fighting, that she can do this, he reminds her she is capable and brave. “You found your own way back”, he tells her. “All you needed was a little help. A little hope”. I don’t know why such a simple line affected me so profoundly but I would wager it probably resonates with most people battling mental illness. Most of the time we cannot use, nor do we expect or desire an external solution. All we want is support while we figure out our own minds which sometimes feel like they are cannibalizing themselves.

Dillion does this brilliantly, one could say literally so: he appears as the most brilliant light in Senua’s visions, always a little too far away, representing both her hopes and fears at the same time. He is the light in her suffocating darkness, and yet when she tries to reach for him, he disappears. The most poignant version of this is when the light representing Dillion awaits Senua with open arms, and when she runs towards him we see he was actually facing the other way and he falls over the edge of a bridge into the dark waters thrashing below. Her tortured mind won’t let her have even a semblance of peace. Not yet, at least. The voices are still too active.

The one voice that truly soothes her tortured mind.

The voices

Possibly the most unique, immersive and striking element of the entire game, Senua’s voices are always with her (and us) from the very beginning. The main female voice in her head could be described as the most maternal one, the one kindest to her, although it comes with its fair share of pessimism and despair at times. Most of the other voices are also female but serve a distinctively different role: that of Senua’s immediate perception and emotions. They laugh, they cry, they shout, they warn her; they also alternate between encouragement and mockery.

Even though this element is very much related to one of the many possible cognitive and emotional effects of psychosis on a sufferer, I do believe it can be extrapolated to other kinds of mental illness if seen metaphorically. The voices don’t have to be literal auditory stimuli within our own brains. They can often be thoughts, with very similar results.

Depression and anxiety come to mind once more, not only due to my personal experience with them but due to their relative ubiquity in modern society. Far more people suffer from either one of them (or even both) than one might think. There is a high degree of comorbidity between those two disorders, and so they seem to overlap quite a lot emotionally and cognitively, and even create an unholy mixture of symptoms that can really torture someone battling them.

Often, in mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety or even BPD, the voice is our own. We tell ourselves all the horrible things we fear, all the things we hate about ourselves. Sometimes, however, the voices can almost seem exactly like Senua’s: internalized, yet not truly belonging to us. During the best times, the voices can be manifestations of thought triggered by memories of loved ones who understand, accept and encourage us — much like Dillion or Senua’s mother.

Other times, the voices can be devastating, constantly bringing us down, acting even worse than our internal self-flagellating monologue. Internalized fear, hatred and shame are very tough to shake off (especially when their source is parental or romantic), as many who have been through the psychotherapeutic process will attest to.

The most blood-curdling example of this in Senua’s case is the demonic, growling voice which we later on discover corresponds to memories of her father and his abuse towards her. He always thought of her as cursed, as dangerous and needing to be controlled. He even convinced her she was responsible for a plague descending upon their village. Another emotionally powerful and revelatory moment in the game arrives when we see Senua screaming to herself, looking straight into a mirror, using her father’s demonic voice. Hatred, internalized.

The only voice that brings her any reprieve from this constant torture, this constant doubt and maddening chaos, is Dillion’s. He often interjects with words of wisdom and love, during which all of her annoying and mocking voices are silenced. He is patient and understanding, and gently guides her without patronizing her. He knows she is capable and strong, but he also knows she is suffering and has unique challenges to face, needing just “[a] little help. A little hope”. Dillion’s example is a wonderful way of portraying how essential support is for people who suffer from a mental illness and how it can, in turn, become the good kind of internalized voice in their minds: the kind that propels them forward, that keeps them fighting and guides them towards accepting and loving themselves.

Don’t give up. Get back up. Keep going.

The dark rot

One of the main concepts which is introduced early on in the game and weaves itself throughout the majority of the narrative is the “dark rot”. It is part of Senua’s perceived curse, her darkness, inflicted upon her by the ruler of the underworld, Hela (a renaming of Hel, the Norse counterpart to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld and death). Even though it has caused some controversy over whether it actually exists as a mechanic or not, I believe the way Ninja Theory introduce it makes the story and the experience far more (in)tense and it gives Senua’s efforts more significance.

In the only text you’ll see in the entire game (I recommend turning subtitles off, as that immerses you even further due the lack of a HUD), the developers pull the camera away from her ominously and give you a direct message: “The dark rot will grow each time you fail. If the rot reaches Senua’s head, her quest is over and all progress will be lost.” Most people get stuck there, endlessly debating not only whether the permadeath mechanic is actually real, but whether it should exist in the game in the first place.

It’s what is said right after this by our main female voice, however, which reveals the true meaning behind this: “The hardest battles are fought in the mind. That is what Dillion taught her. With every defeat, the dark rot will grow and soon it will take her soul. But, for now at least, she still has control of her mind. And she will fulfill her vow, whatever the cost.

Once more, I have two points to make on this which tie to the general discussion of how mental illness is handled in this video game: 1. it actually doesn’t matter whether Senua will die from the rot in her world or in our game, and 2. the dark rot itself as a concept is a perfect metaphor for mental illness, its effects, and the portrayal of the struggle against it.

The first point, I hope, is obvious by now: as mentioned before, it actually doesn’t matter what is objectively (i.e. intersubjectively / externally) real: what matters is Senua’s reality. She truly believes the dark rot is taking over and that it will kill her if she lets it grow with each failure. This, it can be argued, fills her with dread, but later on it also pushes her forward, fighting harder and more fervently after completing each challenge set before her.

The second point is, yet again, an extrapolation to mental illness in general. Especially depressive disorders and their accompanying symptoms can feel almost exactly like being taken over by something dark: something with tendrils which tangle themselves around one’s every cell and give a sickly, tired feeling.

The message here is that we should not let mental illness defeat us. If we simply accept it and let it take over, we have lost not only the battle, but the war itself against it. I think this is a really powerful visual metaphor for what battling mental illness is like. It feels like it becomes a part of you, and every step backwards seems to allow it to grow and take over you, while every victory makes it recede and makes one feel lighter and more optimistic.

It is this feeling of fighting something that has become a part of oneself which will lead us to the conclusion of Senua’s harrowing quest.

Letting go was her salvation.

Hela and the final battle

After fighting many different enemies (all of them potentially manifestations of not only her psychosis but of her own fears and aspects of her psyche and shadow), Senua is finally able to unlock the gate to the underworld, in order to fight Hela and bring back Dillion’s soul. The road to Hela herself proves arduous still, but she finally manages to reach Hela’s chambers and our story crescendos into a majestic, epic (in the true meaning of the word), poignant battle, where Hela crouches close to Senua, taunting her, even wounding and knocking her down, while she sics her endless minions at her.

After what seems like an unending battle, Senua is defeated, lying on the ground, fearing death and still clinging to the idea of saving Dillion from Hela’s deathly grip. It’s at that exact moment, however, when Dillion himself appears in her mind to give her his parting gift: words of wisdom and love, once more. He tells her she should not fear death, but embrace it like a friend, and that only by letting go of fear can she truly be free. “A life without loss is one without love”, he says, and that’s the last time we see him.

Senua finds herself helpless and desperate. Hela towers over her, unfeeling and otherwordly, demonic and divine at the same time. Her ashen skin burns with the glow of embers, but no words escape her lips. She does not engage Senua, no matter how much Senua begs, pleads, bargains with or screams at her. Finally, after Senua gives up all hope, almost at her behest, Hela picks her up effortlessly and stabs her with her own sword.

With Senua’s corpse lying on the ground, we notice something strange: Hela is no longer a towering being, but is of human size; not only that, but she resembles Senua herself. She picks up Dillion’s head and drops it down into endless depths. “Goodbye, my love”, she whispers. We see that Senua resembles her mortal self once more, and the voices are back: jubilant, this time around, at the prospect of their continued existence. They’re not going anywhere, it seems. Immediately after their happy laughter they start panicking about the darkness overcoming both them and Senua herself, but after Senua focuses and breathes, the dark rot recedes. The voices acknowledge it. “It feels…different”, they say. “Is it OK?

Senua turns to us and looks us straight in the eye. “Follow us”, she softly urges us. “We have another story to tell.” The main female voice seals the ending: “My friend, go with her. This now will be your story to witness. Goodbye.
Senua walks away and leaves what is now her Hela-corpse behind.

By letting go of her fear, by letting go of Dillion, she can now truly head towards redemption. The voices are a part of her, and she acknowledges that (“follow us”), but life goes on. “The hardest battles are fought in the mind”, indeed. Her hell and her salvation were within her all along.

Let’s do this.

Live to fight and fight to live another day

Senua is human, like we all are. She is not a mythical creature nor a deity, and she most likely never had any sword that could kill a god; and yet, she still fought through her own personal hell and emerged victorious, changed and stronger than ever before. She screams, she cries, she agonizes and limps through pain and despair, and yet she still stares death and fear in the eye.

She will not let the dark rot win, and neither should we. With this wonderful work of interactive art, I’d like to see a new wave of media where we empathize more with mental illness and learn that it does get better, no matter how hopeless it may seem at the time. The darkness cannot consume us. It is my hope that this article, too, will — in a small way — contribute to the discussion around mental health awareness, both for the benefit of people who experience and battle mental illness themselves, as well as those who love them.

Whether your role is that of a Senua or a Dillion, all I can say is: keep going.

Keep fighting.

We all have more stories to tell.

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Hermes J. Pappas

Written by

Composer, poet, and essayist, with a deep love for philosophy, psychology, film, and interactive media.

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