Mood music for this post: In Circles by Holding Absence.
A couple years ago, I defeated (rofl) a character in the video game Dark Souls 3. As with all stories in the Soulsverse, it needs to be pieced together through observation and reading bits of item lore.
There is a character in it who fascinated me; the Nameless King.
This character is actually a war God that sided with dragons against his father, the king of the Gods. Because of this betrayal, he was stripped of his name and left to wander. He’s a sort of a secret boss and one of the hardest fights in the game. Man, I had fun taking him out. The first time was by myself and the other was with my Tengrist friendo, Sam (hey buddy!).
The concept of Nameless as a name struck me as incredibly meaningful. We see it in media a few times; here, and also in Jet Li’s Hero (excellent movie by the way).
•What does it mean to be called ‘Nameless’ as a name?•
For myself, I see it as a liminal undertaking; to have no name as a name. It’s almost a mystery or riddle. There’s probably more to it, and I want to find out.
Edit – Cassanâ brought this up in the Bolgoi server when I mentioned the Dao being an influence on this as well:
A Way called Way isn’t the perennial Way. A name that names isn’t the perennial name:
the named is mother to the ten thousand things, but the unnamed is origin to all heaven and earth. In perennial Absence you see mystery,and in perennial Presence you see appearance. Though the two are one and the same,once they arise, they differ in name. One and the same they’re called dark-enigma, dark-enigma deep within dark-enigma, gateway of all mystery. – Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu , David Hinton translation
We (Don and I) had a few versions; we first looked at the obvious (lol, well, to us) Ananu̯anācos or Ananu̯ani̯os. The prefix is An – no or negative. Anu̯an is ‘name’. We both came to the conclusion that name is a fucking mouthful.
So then, Don saw ‘dienw’ on the GPC. Prefix ‘Di’ is basically another version of ‘An-‘. This would’ve given us Dianu̯anācos or Dianu̯ani̯os. It was a little better, but still not quite right.
That’s when Don came up with Dīanmanācos and Dīanmani̯os. ‘Anman’ according to Don was the previous form before ‘Anu̯an’. Dīanmani̯os was much easier to say, so I chose that one.
Ⲇⲉⲓⲁⲛⲙⲁⲛⲓⲟⲥ
𐌕𐌉𐌅𐌍𐌌𐌅𐌍𐌉𐌏𐌔
Dīanmani̯os
On Dītrebaxtā, I walk alone and yet with all. An open palm holds nothing and everything at once. Nameless is my name.
It’s the Way. Eđđi mantalon.
•Dītrebaxtā• 