In Death Stranding tears are very important, it carries thematic, symbolical and rational importance in terms of story. So far we saw that; Norman’s character wasn’t able to shed a tear when he was very sad/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/52118593/kojima-productions-reedus-screencap_1920.0.0.jpeg), while he was able to shed a tear when he was facing the world becoming a wasteland in front of the crater, meanwhile humans involuntarily shed tearsas a reaction to beings proximity to them, also when Lea’s character cried as a reaction to presence of beings even though it looks like she cried out of sadnessbecause of (only Kojima and God knows) what she saw. We can’t be sure if they shed tears, as a chemical reaction or as an emotional expression.
SCIENCE OF TEARS
Crying is both of involuntarily neurophysiological processes and cognition. Sometimes we cry as a chemical reaction (e.g. to onions), those tears may signify nothing at all; however at other times they may be an expression of profound grief or sadness. Tears produced in response to that strong emotion you may experience from stress, pleasure, anger, sadness and suffering to physical pain.
Humans are the only species to shed tears of sorrow and joy, pain and happinness: Either when you lost someone you love or when you finally see someone you love. Isn’t it ironic, we do the exact same thing when experiencing the extremity of opposite things. Tears of sorrow and tears of joy, both extremes can cause tears. Even though its not scientifically proven, some believe that if eye drops the first tear from the right eye it is out of happiness and the left eye is out of sadness (mostly used for artistic purposes by symbolizing oppositions) – something to look for in trailers.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT
According to Darwin, tears are a form of social signalling that evolved from mammalian distress calls – a clear visual signal that someone is in pain or danger and needs help. Tears signal helplessness, especially during childhood when humans are at their most vulnerable. The role of crying in engendering attachment between mother and child, the human capacity for empathy. For some it indicates sensitivity and for other it indicates weakness.
According to the social aspect tears are less important when you are alone because there is no one to witness them. However we can also shed tears for distant and highly symbolic attachment figures like God. What counts is the feeling that our helplessness is being acknowledged. With that in mind crying is a form of communication, communicating what thousand words can’t explain but with a single tear. Some people prefer to cry alone and not express their sensitive or weak nature to others, meanwhile act around them by expressing different kind of nature. In many cases people believe that holding your tears cause more problems. That repressed shock in your system may cause; hair loss, hair turning gray, organ dysfunctions, mental dysfunctions, increased blood pressure, heavy breathing, heart problems, poor sleep, anxiety, weaker immune system. Suppressing an emotion (in this case, pain, sorrow, frustration or sadness) actually heightens it and makes you feel worse, so while you might think you're distracting yourself, the stress is actually growing.
SYMBOLIZATION OF TEARS AND RAIN
When water on the Earth’s surface is heated by the Sun, it evaporates and turns into water vapour which rises into the air. When the air cools it condenses around some dust or other particles in the air. These small droplets then become visible as clouds. Droplets fall through the cloud and coalesce into raindrops on their way down. As more and more droplets join together they become too heavy and fall from the cloud as rain – similar to when the sadness in your heart becomes too heavy for you to carry, it falls from your eyes as a tears. Water symbolize emotions and in many cultures tears are associated with rain. As if the rain is tears of nature, grieveing and crying for its creations dried and died under the sun. This act of grieving, this sacrifice resurrects its creations and allow them to live once again.
Crying is healing; some ancient religions believes that babies cry to heal from the mistakes, regrets and sorrow from their previous lives. Each tear we shed makes us a bit emptier inside, each tear evaporates and change something inside us. It doesn't necessarily means its good or bad, just like in nature its a cycle - sometimes its good to be empyt and sometimes its bad to be empty. Everytime we die a little bit inside, we shed a tear from our eyes. We are never really alive without dying a little, and everyday we die a little bit more. However everyday we are more alive than yesterday, as we are get closer to death. The meaning, the value, the taste and the joy of life, get stronger and clearer each day. This is the connection between life and death. When you shed a tear it means something already killed you. However sometimes when you shed a tear it means something new borned inside of you, sometimes your tears can set you free and make you move on, or make you feel the courage, joy, love and hope again. Tears kill you and cause you to reborn again from your ashes. Thats the paradoxical nature of tears and emotions.
Sometimes you feel better after you cry and sometimes it is the only thing you ever need. Tears are like life, when unphysical (thoughts and emotions) becomes physical (water coming out from your eyes). Once there was only darkness, void and nothingness, then first spark of life created physicality, everything comes after that till now is the result of that spark – when non-physical became physical.
THEMATIC ANALYSIS
What those beings symbolize and why we cry as a reaction to them has a huge importance. We should focus on ‘general meaning’ rather than ‘story meaning’ to internalize the message here. There are invisible beings, babies, humans, corpses and black goo beings. Babies, humans and corpses are symbolizing life cycle and exactly what comes to mind when you think about them.
Invisible (floating) beings symbolize something greater than men; they are able to judge, watch us from above, as if they almost doesn’t exist, they don’t look human and meanwhile they look like ghosts or angels, they are like evaporated particles, opposite to underground figures they look pure, transparent, clear and colorless like water, crystal or diamonds, like a mirage or dreamy vision staring back at you. They fulfilled their potentials, purified their souls, derived from sins, achieved the sense of morality, achieved great knowledge, reached the skies and they reached the heavens. They can’t be harmed, neither they can’t influence the environment. They symbolize an ideal, figures already achieved the dreams of the ones still struggling their ways out. They are free.
Underground beings (black goo people) symbolize something lower than humans; they are able to pull us down to their own level, watch us from below to pull us down into their own (horrible) reality at every opportunity, they look very organic almost like the soil, petrol or coal, they look dark, rotten and filthy, they are the absence of light and absence of colors, they are the void and the emptiness. They didn’t fulfill their potentials, they are corrupted, they carry the sins of humans (in purgatory), they symbolize ignorance and lack of knowldege, , they didn’t figure a way out of there, they are still struggling. They prevent humans from reaching to skies, reaching to heavens. They can influence the environment and they can harm humans. They look like dead branches and leaves drowned by overwater, drowned by (negative) emotions and rotten from inside. Addicted to past, roots into pain, sadness, tears, failure and sins. They are trapped.
Humans are standing in the middle and struggling between the both. Rooted on the ground but trying to fly. Trying to achieve their morals in the corruption, trying to reach the skies without being pulled down underground, trying to stay pure without being covered in dirt, trying to handle the pressure so coal can be diamond. If floating figures are evaporated particles and underground figures are the soil, humans are the plants rooted underground and trying to reach the sky.
HAUNTING YOURSELF
Underground figures are below corpse, however they are still human in nature. Corpses are humans that reached their latest state: dead, past is complete, full of regrets, carried the despair, have sadness in his heart, corrupted, stiff, old, something that doesn’t need to be alive anymore and something already reached the end. Nothing but a burden, no more use for him. Soon the physical existence will disappear underground as if it never existed and will be forgetten. Once he was like the baby and the Sam. Even if its dead, corpse can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they will be back and doesn’t stay dead as they should be: similar to Lisa’s ghost haunting Norman, cancellation of Silent Hills, PTSD, feeling regret, sadness caused by an experience from the past, depression, restricting your own life because of a trauma etc. Something dead, the past, despair, corruption, something old, something that doesn’t need to be alive anymore and something that has already reached its ending is coming back to haunt you.
In that sense once they were baby, they were Sam, and they were corpse of Sam. They are the corpse of the baby. After all that dead thing come backs to haunt you was just another baby that growed up and suffered, once they all borned as something beautiful, pure and hopeful. They grow up and challanged by life; corrupted and violated as well as experiencing positives and they died without achieving inner peace. It is symbolyzing that, underground figures are all Sam, haunting Sam. His past and broken mind is haunting him, so he can’t be something new (by also pulling down the baby he is carrying). In that sense his own despair is destroying his own hope, his own past is destroying his own future, his own sadness is destroying his own happiness, his own regrets is destroying his own anticipation. They want to come back to take revenge against his former self or to fix the past and to make it right, to be able to live what they missed. When they come back they haunt the new ones. Similar to brain cells passing the previous information to the new ones before they die, so they can repeat the same patterns over and over, even for decades. We live that horror inside us our entire life. Past keeps repeating itself. All the sadness, all the regret, all the fear, all the stiffness comes back to haunt you - its you, who is haunting you. However the future you want to claim from the perspective of the past is never the same and its never what you imagine it would be. Life requires us to move on, to discover new horizons and thats the only way to heal.
What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.
Its not a coincidence ‘dark handprints’ approached and haunted Sam in the cave when he was looking at the picture (from his past). Tears fastwords whatever it touches, but tears can’t just wash away everything. Past just won’t let go; tears won’t make you forget your past, your regrets and your pain. Lea’s words indicates something regretful happened and it haunts Sam emotionally. Our character is haunted both emotionally and physically, therefore the players as well. Game is reflecting our inner world, we are all haunted (and pulled underground) by our demons, by our ghosts until the day we die and sometimes, something beautiful,hopeful, pure and new can born from this cruel, disastrous, horrible wreck. So it can fly and reach to skies, reach to the heavens.
RAIN OF TEARS
Purgatory beings can sense life and it takes the life out of everything – to honor death. They cause us to shed tears, as if they are collecting our tears. Allergic reaction to them is crying and shedding our tears. As if they are feeding from what tears symbolize - our sorrows, sadness, regrets, pain, death, violence and corruption. In the first trailer Sam can’t shed a tear, because he could be dried from the inside. If being close to purgatory beings can cause us to shed tears, being transformed to purgatory could cause us to lose all of our tears. I think you will cry near those purgatory beings if you have sorrow in your heart, no matter what you feel in that particular moment. Purgatory collects all of our tears, similar to how every living being starts to decay and dry (lose all the water, lose all the life, lose all the emotion in them) after their death. Being vulnerable, being able to cry, being able to die a little is the indication of whether we are really alive or not.
Sad... So sad... A host of sorrows... And you are one of them. I am The Sorrow. Like you, I, too, am filled with sadness. This world is one of sadness...
Crater full of water (where Sam goes after the explosion) in the 3rd teaser could be tears of human, going to purgatory, then it could evaporate and rains into our world, our tears falling from the sky, killing and sometimes giving birth to life. In that sense purgatory rain (timefall) is made up of ‘tears of men’, lived their lives in sorrow, thats why its damaging. It could be nurturing if they were ‘tears of joy’. When ‘tears of pain, tears of sorrow and tears of death’ makes contact with the environment and living beings it kills them by causing to age them rapidly. Tears of collected pain, sorrow, sadness, anger and grief has the same effect as acid on the environment when it rains. Because it has the same effect on our system, environment and on our soul. We all act and live by carrying those emotions inside us regardless of if we ever shed those tears or not. So nothing healthy can be created, born, grow and live without joy, love and peace.
From the moment we're thrown into this world, we're fated to bring each other nothing but pain and misery.
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