Obsidian's Theme Songs · 4:03am Aug 16th, 2016
What is this? A new blog post! Oh my gosh! Jokes aside, I wasn't planning to make another blog post ever again. But perhaps there is still someone out there who enjoys reading this.
A long time ago, I made a post about how much music can inspire to a specific scene, a character or a whole story. I also mentioned that of all characters in my stories, Obsidian Shards had the most theme songs. Pretty much one for every stage of his development and even some specific scenes. He may be gone for a long time now, but he never fully vanished from my mind. No matter what others may think, I think he is one of the deepest characters I ever created and displayed a ton of character development. So, in honor of his memory, I scraped together every bit of musical inspiration I could remember using for him, along with some commentary on each piece of music. Keep in mind that this WILL contain spoilers, so you may not want to read it fully if you have yet to finish the first book.
Sanity Slipping by Nox Arcana [Album: Blackthorn Asylum]
Now don't let the title of this song get you the wrong idea. This is actually Obsidian's first theme. I used it while developing his original character and appearance. It describes the moment his identity as a reaper was first revealed. This theme actually stuck with him for a very long time, as it displayed him and his personality before he started to show first signs of change.
Fractured Memories by Nox Arcana [Album: Blackthorn Asylum]
Some of his most important scenes even had more than one song as inspiration. One of them is the moment he decides to talk about his childhood. This particular song helped me get the sinister and traumatizing side of his memories right.
High Hopes by Nightwish [Album: End of an Era]
This is the other song that heavily functioned as inspiration for Obsidian's memories. It helped me get the tragic side of his story and character right. The song only exists as live performance for all I know and I am actually very happy I found this particular link, because it is the exact same live performance recording I used for inspiration.
White Night Fantasy by Nightwish [Album: Wishsides]
This song marks not only the beginning of winter in the first book, but also the moment Obsidian begins to understand that he is in love with Fluttershy. It not only stands for the very moment he becomes aware of his feelings, but the full multiple months period he spent with her. Although I never wrote this out, I still love to close my eyes to this song and imagine photos dropping onto a table of them sharing tender moments out in the snow, playing together and just being an adorable couple all in all.
Lost in Darkness by Nox Arcana [Album: Carnival of lost souls]
The title of this song could hardly be more fitting to mark the beginning and duration of his internal struggle. This song perfectly reflects his sadness over actions he yet has to commit. Actions he doesn't want to do, but has to. Everything he had been thus far is turned upside down and he no longer clearly knows what is right and what is wrong. His greatest strength turns into his greatest weakness and his deep bond to darkness causes him to get lost in exactly that base element that once used to be his greatest and only ally. Even today, this is one of my absolutely favorite songs of Nox Arcana and I keep coming back to listen to it.
Dead Boy's Poem by Nightwish [Album: Wishmaster]
The entire song marks his final phase, his depression, desperation and eventual slipping into insanity. Nightwish sure has very powerful songs and I always loved imagining Obsidian struggle with the emotions that are utterly wrecking him at that point. Him wanting to be with Fluttershy on one hand, but being incapable of even looking her in the eyes over how heavy his guilt weights on him. The song has clear phases itself, to which i like to imagine him preparing to fulfill his order while longingly looking at fluttershy from a distance, followed by him confessing what he had done to twilight, then completely collapsing emotionally in front of her eyes. This is followed by him being stuck in an endless cycle of desperation and guilt, before he eventually decides to abandon everything he valued to pull off his last reap. At the "lonely soul" part, at least the first few times that phrase is repeated, I imagine him saying farewell to fluttershy, then running off to complete his last reap and slipping into insanity.
Madame de Pompadour from the show Doctor Who
This melody absolutely nailed the sadness during Obsidian's farewell to Fluttershy. If you feel like it, I strongly recommend reading that part again while listening to this. The emotions can not be described with mere words.
FLUTTERSHY SPECIAL! Another Day by Within Temptation [Album: The Dance]
As just mentioned, this song is actually not about Obsidian, but about Fluttershy. I took this song as inspiration to picture her point of view of what is happening to Obsidian during his depression stage. I like to imagine her singing this song as she longingly looks for Obsidian, only able to catch short glimpses of him before he runs away or hides. Near the end, I like to imagine the scene during which Obsidian says farewell to Fluttershy and returns her present to him. She howls the song in grief, her tears running freely and crying for the rest of the song, alone in her cottage.
Disappeared from the game Kingdom Hearts 2
This song, among others, marks the moment Obsidian slips into insanity and the last battle of the first book begins. Just imagining the once heroic dark stallion slip away like that and gain a grin of total madness while playing this soundtrack still gives me the shivers.
Pyramid Head Fight Theme from the game Silent Hill 2
The conclusion "The Duel" was meant to be as horrifying as thinkably possible. I wanted to create a truly traumatizing experience, seing the character that once used to guard the main characters with his life turn into this twisted being thirsting for nothing but blood anymore, leaving behind whole piles of corpses indiscimiately of whom they are. Just imagine the moment as Twilight sees him stand on the pedestal, taking a shower in the blood of ponies and grinning widely in twisted bliss as this melody plays. Again, words can't describe the feeling.
Blood Red Sandman by Lordi [Album: The Monsterican Dream]
Another song to work as inspiration for writing "The Duel". This time, it is to depict the more action-filled scenes. From Obsidian turning out to be a Red Reaper, over him killing Applejack, followed by chasing Twilight and being confronted by the other reaperes trying to take him down, this song covers the entire first third of the conclusion with the moans at the end of the song slipping it over to the appearance of Malice.
Speaking of Malice... Frenzy by Nox Arcana [Album: Blackthorn Asylum]
This song helped me in writing the transition from Obsidian dieing to Malice being reborn. His return was the second worst imaginable thing throughout the entire first book and this surely underlined the event.
Wish I Had an Angel by Nightwish [Album: End Of An Era]
Moving away from the horrifying, we are going to the "Ringing Bells" conclusion. As with the previous song from the same album, I looked for this specific version of the life album on purpose. Here, it is due to the outro. I really would like you to completely ignore what is going on in the video and instead picture the following scenes. Throughout the song itself, the main characters are fighting against Obsidian who had slipped into madness. As the song ends and the fireworks begin, Fluttershy delieved the killing blow and with the big explosion before the outro song begins, Obsidian collapses dead. As the outro gradually builds up, Fluttershy turns into a reaper and as the choir becomes loud, she holds the dead body of Obsidian in her front hooves, breaking out in tears and holds it close. For the rest of the video, imagine Obsidians funeral, with the outro ending in Fluttershy walking over to Celestia and disappearing along with her and the rest of the reapers. A perfect tragedy in music form.
And finally... Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance [Album: The Black Parade]
Let's end this off with something happy. While it may seem strage to some, this particular song from My Chemical Romance gives off intense dark yet positive energy to me. I do not really have a song for most of the conlusion "Letter of Destiny", but I used this song to build the atmosphere for the wedding scene. I never wrote it that way, because it doesn't fit, but whenever I imagined my story in combination with that song, I imagined a rock band taking over the wedding while scenes from throughout the story pop up, showing just how much they had overcome to make this event possible and during the last moments of the song, the couplie kisses, rice grains fly through the air and everything zooms out, before the last drumbeat reveals the eyes of a demon hiding in the darkness, indicating that this would not be the end.
Well, it took me a surprising amount of time to gather all of this together again, but I hope it was worth it and you enjoyed what I had to share with you. And don't worry, I will stick to my words. The MI Series will be completed.
A new blogpost from you ? Is this real life ? No but seriously pretty sweet music.
Just came on to check if I had missed any PMs since it had been quite a few weeks since the last chapter. Got a nice collection of wonderful songs here. They really blend with the scenes. Specially Blackthorn Asylum with Obsidian. Even White Night Fantasy for the Winter romantic season.
Disappeared never has creep me out as far as I can remember. Well, I've played most Kingdom Hearts games and it cartoony. So I imagine that's why.
This is maybe a song of taste you may like. It sorta reminds me of the Red Day chapter and the attack on the Church in the BloodClaw Cult book. http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/511638
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Not bad, but in both cases this song does not quite reach it if you ask me for my humble oppinion. If you keep the context of kingdom hearts out of the song and just listen to Disappeared for what it is, it actually fits the scaryness of that scene in the book pretty well. For the same reason, I used A Fight To The Death from Kingdom Hearts 2 as inspiration to picture the Red Day. It fits the intensity of what was happening. As for the BloodClaw Cult, I miss some chanting and eerieness. My personal theme song for the BloodClaw Cult is Shadow Forest by Nox Arcana.
Also, Im really sorry I became this slow with my chapters now... It just gets harder and harder for me to bring up the motivation to keep writing.
I never imagined A Fight To The Death would had been used for the Red Day. But I see how well it blends in with all the chaos of the battle. I think I'm getting a liking to those Nox Arcana songs. I can imagine the church praying to the Nightmare Moon statue under that one.
Also, no worries, mate. I can wait months for a chapter. I know how difficult it can be with a low fan-base.
I was like you before. A low fan base and struggling to motivate. What helped me was saying to myself getting it over and done with so it isn't playing on my mind anymore. Of course, at the same time, my motivation was slowed down due to worrying of rushing or mistakes. Even thinking could I had wrote it better or I'm I writing it the best I can. I'm not saying you should follow these words, of course. Just what helped me.
People asked for another book but, although I had some idea for a prologue. Felt Human-in-Equestria too common. It was my first and only book anyway.
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I once used to have an extensive fan-base for my work. Over 100 active readers. Those days are long gone though.