Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-71.17.68.254-20130907025506/@comment-9090085-20150412055535

73.Anon.52 wrote: ^I would still chalk that up to RT playing with lighting for the anime "style" rather than a "powers of grimm" aspect... "mood lighting" has been a thing in all forms of media for quite some time..... That might be the case, but I'm not so sure; after all, these are some of the only times any "mood lighting" effect has been used(and in other cases, the ambient light was naturally dark). Raven's scene in particular stands out: Creepy she may be, but she was distinctly heroic there; why, then, does the train car stay dark throughout her entire appearance, and revert to its normal lighting only after she leaves?

But perhaps more importantly: LiveandSound wrote: They may be similar to the Darkspawn, but not that much. Are they?

I must confess to having not actually played/watched Dragon Age; so I can't accurately compare them. I did, however, get into an argument last year over how similar the Grimm were to the Titans from Attack on Titan, and it got to the point where I could make storyline parallels between the Colossal Titan and Cinder.

In fact, one of the only major differences between the two(besides appearance) is that the Titans are individually much more dangerous(forcing Grimm to rely on numbers) - and even then, both served the same narrative role of keeping humanity contained within their walls(look no further then Mountain Glenn).

Besides, we already know these unliving monsters are heavily associated with darkness: from the Mysterious Narrator's introduction to Pyrrha's explanation of Aura, Grimm are almost synonymous with darkness. Further, humans are often associated with light; we can even expand upon it(with some theories on Cinder's endgame) to see how looking at the maps isn't total nonsense.

First, I'm linking Speculative author, Volume 3: Cinder Fall by Zathronas; I'm going to paraphrase a bit from it, so feel free to read it so you understand where the hell I'm coming from.

Zathronas believes that Cinder is after something that repels Grimm, essentially a giant "Lightstone" from Dinotopia. If we take that and the line about the kingdoms being "Beacons surrounded by darkness" somewhat literally, then using the map to gauge Grimm densities makes sense - especially if it's a satellite map.

Thus, the areas around the kingdoms(and other human habitations) appear "bright" because said "Lightstone" and civilization itself keep the "sea" of Grimm at bay, while truly massive concentrations of Grimm create "dark" areas of perpetual twilight, visible from space.

... At least, that's the theory. There isn't too much evidence for this, but I think it's reasonably accurate at this point.

(I am kind of curious now... how similar are Darkspawn and Grimm?)