Contrasting Talulah’s Two Village Encounters in Ursus

Info and Spoiler Warning

This is an essay about the video game “Arknights”. While being familiar with the game is useful, I will give enough background to make it readable even by people who have never heard of the game before.

For those who have played or watched it, there will be spoilers through operation JT8-1: “Ire, Flowing Wilderward” in the Main Theme, or what I assume will be season 3 or 4 of the anime. These spoilers will be limited to flashbacks looking at Talulah’s past; there will be no discussion of current events.

Notes on Setting

For readers unfamiliar with Arknights’ setting, there are a few things you need to know before reading this essay.

First, the events we will be talking about here occur in the country of Ursus which is based on Czarist Russia. Talulah, currently in her late 20s or so, is on the run through its northern tundra after assassinating a duke who kidnapped her in her childhood and raised her to be his successor.

There is also a terminal, cancer-like disease called Oripathy that is plaguing the world. The people who have contracted it are known as the Infected, and are treated especially horribly within Ursus, where they are used as slave labor to mine the valuable mineral causing the disease and killed for sport when their use has expired. Fear of the Infected is high despite the extremely unlikely person-to-person transmission of the disease.

Talulah forcibly infected herself to foil the duke’s long-term plans for using her politically, and she is on the run primarily as an Infected. She believes her role as an assassin is unimportant and that she is unlikely to be pursued for it.[1]

Finally, a form of magic known as Arts exists in the world. Talulah specifically has a strong ability to create fire.

Introduction

During Talulah’s years in the tundra, she encounters two villages. She is optimistic about the people in the first and speaks with idealism about people in general. In the second though, her expectations about people are subverted. In this essay we will contrast these two villages and the events surrounding them in detail.

The First Village

After the assassination, Talulah remembers little except she wandered for a long time before arriving in the first village, so we don’t get to see the arrival first-hand. We only hear second-hand from one of the people she later befriends named Alina that Talulah was in bad shape on arrival and given aid.[2] Later, it is also revealed that the villagers knew Talulah was Infected since she first arrived in the village, meaning they accepted her despite this, when the woman who first gave her aid tells her “I realized the moment I helped you change clothes… Talulah, we’ve known you were Infected for a long time now.”[3]

There is one thing Talulah does remember clearly though, which is her first impression of the village itself. “Your harvests were good, you’d just put out the evening dance’s bonfire, you had fenced burdenbeasts, and decorations hung outside on the walls…” This establishes two things about the village itself. First, that they had food, including livestock. Second, that they had entertainment and enough to have some luxury items. From this, Talulah concludes “Your lives might’ve been tough, but you still enjoyed how you lived.” This establishes Talulah’s belief that food and some luxuries, whatever their form, are indicators of an enjoyable life.

Given her state on arrival in a remote village with no law enforcement, clearly on the run, Alina asks Talulah if she was worried the villagers would kill her. Talulah responds “You wouldn’t have killed me. After that, not even the dance would feel right anymore. Who kills someone and stays calm as a lake? Only vicious monsters would. And they’re not common at all.” This establishes Talulah’s general view of people, and notably admits that who she calls “vicious monsters” will kill others with no loss in enjoyment of life.

In the first village we have now established a few things about the village itself. First, that the villagers had sufficient food and luxuries to have an enjoyable life. Second, that the people there were not the kind of people who could kill others without a loss in the enjoyment of their lives. Third, that the village itself was accepting of Infected. We also established some events surrounding the village; Talulah openly arrived in it seeking aid and she was not killed by the villagers.

In Between

Between the first and second villages, a few years pass. During this time, the first village is attacked by an Ursus patrol for harboring multiple Infected. The attack is repelled and the surviving villagers and Talulah flee deeper into the tundra. Alina is killed during their time in the wilderness. Talulah’s group is also gradually joined by other groups of Infected, but their lack of supplies causes them to need to barter with willing villages for supplies.

The Second Village

Talulah arrives in the second village during a search for a missing group of Infected last seen nearby. The differences with the first village begin at once. Talulah goes in with mistrust, sneaking into the village rather than asking for help. She recognizes this difference herself. “Before, I probably would’ve just run inside and started asking questions right away. I wonder when did I become like this.”[4] Contrast that with Talulah wandering into the first village to seek help.

Next, recall that food and some luxuries were established as the things necessary for an enjoyable life, and contrast that with this description of the second village: “What a rundown place. Looks like they didn’t have much of a harvest this year. Everyone looks so tired. … It’s winter, so there should be wheat straws and warming grass husks everywhere. Did they run into food problems?” There are no mentions at all of any livestock, dancing, music, bonfires, or decorations at all. Everyone is tired and there is no food to be had. They lack the very things Talulah said were necessary to have an enjoyable life that she saw in the first village.

At this point, she discovers what has happened to the missing Infected. Within the village’s empty granary she finds marks from people clawing at the inside of the door, evidence of people trying to dig their way out, and residue indicating the death of Infected people inside. From this, Talulah concludes they were tricked, locked inside the empty granary by the villagers, and left to die, a stark contrast to the aid Talulah was given when whe arrived in the first village. Recall Alina asking Talulah if she was worried the village would kill her as well.

While in the granary, Talulah is found by a farmer, and he gives a different reason for their lack of food than the seemingly poor harvest. “You aren’t here for the rent, are you? We already paid our Originium tax. Hell, the taxman took our food too while he was at it. There isn’t much more we can pony up.” Talulah states she is looking for the Infected, but the man repeatedly lies to Talulah after this. First he claims they have seen no Infected, then that the Infected stole their food and ran off, then that they had no choice. Talulah claims otherwise: “You could’ve chased them away or just never allowed them in... You could’ve just attacked them or outright killed them, and I wouldn’t be here complaining to you right now. But you tricked them. You lured them into your empty storehouse, locked the doors, and starved them.” The man does not deny this, and so we can establish that the villagers here had a choice to not commit evil, but did so anyway.

Conclusions

In this essay we have now shown that the second village Talulah visited in the Ursus tundra was a near foil to the first through five aspects; the presence vs. lack of an enjoyable life, the good vs. evil nature of the villagers, their acceptance vs. rejection of the Infected, Talulah’s open arrival vs. suspicious arrival, and finally that the villagers in the first did not kill someone seeking aid, while those in the second did.

In future essays, this will be used as a building block to establish a large number of foils between Talulah and Ch’en Hui-chieh as we analyze their characters in more detail. This comparison will eventually lead us to establishing hate as the primary differentiator between the two of them. Finally, we will use this to establish hate and empathy as two of Arknights’ core themes and discuss their applicability in the real world today.