• Paulie [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      4 months ago

      Headcanon that Sekiro and Issihin were lovers (hence the long dialogues reminiscing over Sake), Isshin’s disguise as Tengu in order to conceal the fact Isshin couldn’t be seen with Sekiro as lovers (shirtless of course). Which makes the final battle even harder because the words “hesitation is defeat” is exactly what Isshin had told Wolf over drinks when Isshin was confessing his love for him. Hesitation to find love within Isshin, to stop the killing and to prevent shura.

      Even under the golden sun, in Buddhism gold represents enlightenment, love, and purity, the clouds obscuring those parts of gold represent Sekiro’s demise and fall to Shura, but they also could be a metaphor for Wolf’s hesitation to actually love Isshin fully. He had to kill Emma because it was his way of fully abandoning that relationship with Isshin, his trust, his love gone but in the end Isshin says “I couldn’t bring myself to hate you”

      • Smeagolicious [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        I meeeaaan, Isshin was very close to Sekijo/Monkey/the Sculptor, just swap him for sekiro in your theory and it’s pretty much canon already. We know Isshin adopted Genichiro and afaik we don’t see any het partner implied for Isshin sooooooo…

        It also already works with Isshin having to sacrifice & save Sekijo from Shura and abandon that relationship for his dreams of ruling the land - he chose his ambition and now in his old age reminisces about such things as, in the moment, hesitation is defeat. We already see the events of Sekijo’s life repeated in Sekiro’s, and he is very much a thematic mirror of the older shinobi.