Two Battle Songs

Ran across these two songs, and I found them enjoyable. They are both from the game NieR, which I am told is one of the better action RPGs from the previous gen of consoles (Playstation 3, Xbox 360). The game features a levitating, talking book that follows the PC around. That’s already a good premise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUUOezyeOmU

Contrast the voices in the two videos: In “Song of the Ancients,” the women sing almost as mezzo-sopranos, while in “Emil Karma,” the boy is pretty much soprano. Emil in the game is voiced by Julie Ann Taylor, but I don’t know if she sings the song or if it’s an actual boy. To my knowledge, these songs play during battle scenes in the game.

At first I thought it odd to have a battle song sung by females, but then I remembered in an Old Testament class I took in college, that women would trail behind the Hebrew armies as they marched, to clap and sing encouraging songs*. They also did that after returning home from battle. There were probably similar phenomena in other pre-modern cultures.

Having some girls cheer you is a favored thing to guys, anyway, but maybe it was a bigger deal to them since there’s no telling what would happen on the battlefield. The nation of Israel could live on even after one of the sperm donors men got run through with a rusty Canaanite spear, but once the women are gone, that’s pretty much it. Imagine that—being praised for something you were supposed to do anyways, even when you failed at it (cue that Aaron Copland symphony). I can only speak for guys, but unless you’re a millionaire genius Navy Seal or there’s social media points involved, praise for performing a cultural mandate is hard to come by**.

* I remember this very specifically because the teacher mentioned a “sedan” was involved, and I (first) thought it was weird that they had Honda Civics back then.
** Sorry, MGTOW losers: men were always expected to perform proactively, way before feminism was an itch in Mary Wollstonecraft’s crumpety crotch.
*** Bonus unreferenced footnote: this post is not me complaining about “society” cheating me out of anything. No one owes me a damn thing.