Legacy of Gay-n | KRITIQAL

“We must re-write the ending of it, you and I.”

Relegated to cult classic status, Legacy of Kain (Amy Hennig, 1996-2004) is a gothic fantasy epic concerning the exploits of the vampire Kain and his prodigal lieutenant Raziel, as they traverse the land of Nosgoth and attempt to change their fate. Legacy of Kain emerges from, and is in close conversation with the literary gothic, a genre largely developed by queer people such as Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde. Of course, queer allegory has, as Richard Primuth says, “[...] been a part of vampire stories in popular culture, mostly as a subtle undercurrent, since at least the 19th century.”

With its mix of flowery dialogue, elaborate metaphor, and obsessive passion, Kain is continually referencing and subverting gothic conventions throughout its runtime. Amidst the complex story spanning multiple time periods, interrogations on the nature of power, and musings on immortal morality, another theme emerges from the game’s proximity to gothic and vampire literature: Kain is queer as hell.

Kain's story begins in Blood Omen (Denis Dyack, 1997), taking him from nobleman to aberration. His story references the paradigm of the vampire as it appears in The Vampyre (John Polidori, 1819) and Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897): a nobleman-cum-vampire. He is a gothic character of excess and sin, and his story follows him from rebirth through to the choice that finally frees him (while damning the world of Nosgoth): refusing to die.

Kain’s creator, the necromancer Mortanius, turned him into a vampire with the express intent of manipulating who and what he should be. Being the last of his kind, Mortanius expects Kain to martyr himself. Kain’s continued existence and rejection of Mortanius’ control sets the stage for the narrative of the rest of the series. Kain is everything that the world does not want him to be: an alive, unashamed, shirtless vampire, serving only himself.

Kain and Raziel from Soul Reaver, standing in a row. The former is a buff goth man wearing a leather cape, and the latter a larger and more monstross green creature. — *Soul Reaver (Amy Hennig, 1999)*

Between Blood Omen and the second game, Soul Reaver (Amy Hennig, 1999), Kain has fully embraced his vampiric heritage. He resurrects Raziel, the first of six lieutenants, as a vampire: beautiful, eternal, and most importantly, his. Every one of these lieutenants is a big, buff dude. They are explicitly denied shirts but encouraged to don as much leather as they please, and it is made clear that Kain actively defiled their corpses to create them, in a manner akin to Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818).

Kain, like Frankenstein, picks attractive and superior examples of the male form, only to inevitably abandon his creations. Their conception is fundamentally queer: a man creating life without the need of a woman, born of his desire and reverence of the male form. Kain’s refutation of the status quo, of life itself, and his continued defiance of what is expected of him, marks him as an archetype of the gothic, the Byronic antihero (Claire F.). Within the gothic excesses of Legacy of Kain, Kain stands as a suitable antihero for the genre and setting, and moreso, as a foil to his lieutenant Raziel.

In Kain and much of gothic literature, vampires are both victims and aggressors. At the times when they are most oppressed, they are feared for being different, perceived as unnatural and ungodly within the dominant Christian culture. Kain represents the vampire as accepting, even celebratory, of themselves. All seem to fear what Kain - a vampire who is unapologetically himself, surrounded by an empire of like-minded allies - could represent. As Jonathon Tyler says, “if the vampire escapes, it will live to menace another victim; or, worse, if the vampire wins then everyone will become a vampire.”

At the start of Soul Reaver, Raziel has evolved past the need for Kain, and in doing so earns a new kind of reward: twink death. Raziel's first act within Soul Reaver is to mourn his lost beauty. His skin has been burned from his body, he possesses no jaw, no genitalia – he is a skeletal husk of what he once was. His reaction, to fall to his knees and loudly mourn his lost self, is both melodramatic and painfully understandable: his beauty, his body, outward gender presentation, and his place at Kain's side, are all taken from him, stripping him of identity and affection both. His reaction hearkens back to The Picture of Dorian Grey (Oscar Wilde, 1890), and the titular protagonist's frequent tantrums: “The tears welled in his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the divan, [...]” (29).

In early gothic literature, queer writers often used the vanity and effeminacy of a dandy persona to signify the homoerotic and blur contemporary stereotypes of masculinity. Many queer writers, from Wilde to Byron, were themselves considered dandies and this only served to cement how, as Daria Kent writes, “we can recognize the dandy as a distinctly queer figure [within gothic literature].” Raziel embodies the dandy archetype in his obsession with his lost beauty, with much of his arc emphasizing his struggle to discover, decide and shape his own identity.

Raziel further subverts masculine stereotypes in his vulnerability, emotional pain, and anger. Within the gothic, female characters are most often relegated to the distressed heroine - a figure cast out for their transgressions, and often the point of view character with which we come to empathize most. As Katherine Hawkins says, “the Gothic is not always suited to women’s emancipation, but it is very well suited to women’s anger, [...].”

Within Soul Reaver, it is Raziel's righteous anger that takes the fore and defines his entire arc (emphasized by Kain’s taunting manipulation, “I had faith in your ability to hate”). This grants Raziel a narrative flexibility throughout Soul Reaver. His body is a genderless canvas, yet his role is to be a male object of desire to Kain, and his narrative voice takes on traditionally feminine emotions. All of these, within the gothic sensibilities of Kain, subvert traditional heteronormative gender dynamics and instead project them onto a singularly male one. Together with his effeminacy, Raziel is cast as the distressed heroine, a complimentary figure to Kain’s Byronic antiheroism. You could not have the relationship between Kain and Raziel without the dandy homoeroticism of his emotions and their supporting archetypes.

Kain’s encounters with other people almost always end in violence, but in his dealings with Raziel, he instead entreats his former lieutenant. Vampire fiction is rife with stories of elder vampires guiding younger proteges (Primuth), and Kain evolves from an antagonistic pursuer to Raziel’s mentor as the games go on, with Raziel coming to appreciate rather than scorn his creator. Kain encourages Raziel to accept himself, to love himself, and this is where Kain presents the most danger to the status quo. His refusal to hate his existence is a revolutionary act of self-compassion.

The crux of Soul Reaver’s narrative – and indeed the whole franchise – is the evolving relationship between Kain and Raziel. What once was hate, becomes friendship and, eventually, a sort of love. Soul Reaver begins with Raziel pursuing Kain, but by the fifth and final game, Defiance (Amy Hennig, 2003), the roles are reversed and Kain pursues Raziel, always this obsessional dynamic between the two. “Hate me, but do it honestly,” Kain pleads to Raziel at the beginning of the third game, Soul Reaver 2 (Amy Hennig, 2001). Kain plays the part of the villain to satisfy Raziel's need for him to be evil. Their constant back and forth is a form of antagonistic courtship which replaces stereotypical queer dynamics with an enemies-to-lovers dynamic, their hatred no less passionate than love, albeit more destructive.

As Kain and Raziel’s relationship evolves, other characters begin to play upon their mutual dependence. The Elder God tells Raziel that Kain will “seduce and deceive” him, his blood belonging on Raziel's hands. Meanwhile, Raziel's brother, Zephon, mocks his loss of beauty and station (“you are not his handsome Raziel anymore [...]”). In Dracula, the count claims the outsider, Harker (“This man belongs to me!”); in Kain, the titular vampire fights continually to claim ownership over Raziel. The constant, antagonistic gravitational pull between them only serves to highlight that neither can live with or without the other.

As Defiance (and the core franchise) ends, Raziel tricks Kain into impaling him so that he and Kain’s sword might finally be united. The sword acts as a physical culmination of the four games' tension, a literal penetration into Raziel and a final, tragic assertion that he is both dedicated and subservient to Kain. Kain begs Raziel to find a different solution, embracing him as Raziel places a hand on Kain’s chest, comforting him even in his dying moment. In sacrificing himself to Kain, Raziel once again assumes the role of a traditionally female sacrificial victim, and in doing so, takes his rightful place as a tragic figure who’s love ultimately destroys him. As he fades into nonexistence, Raziel affirms Kain of his devotion:

“This is what I am for. The two, become one. Both Soul Reavers, together and the Scion of Balance is healed. And I am not your enemy, not your destroyer. I am, as before, your right hand, your sword.”

The game goes on to treat this sacrifice as both what Kain needed to finally overcome the odds stacked against him, but also to imply that Raziel, in Kain’s sword, will forever be at his side. Raziel has given himself completely, but in doing so will remain with Kain, eternal.

Legacy of Kain is at its core, a classic gothic tragedy of queer obsession The narrative focuses primarily upon how Kain guides Raziel to a more accepting form of self love, grappling with doubt and social pressures he is ultimately unable to resolve. Raziel, in accepting the role society has thrust upon him, destroys himself for the sake of his master. Within the complex world of Legacy of Kain, the hierarchies and expectations of a society stacked against vampires comes to a head, and yet even after Raziel’s death, Kain remains hopeful that there may still be a future for them. In his final words of the franchise, he both thanks and scorns the complicated emotions he feels towards Raziel, in a culmination of their fractured dynamic:

“Most ironic of all was the last gift that Raziel had given me, more powerful than the sword that now held his soul [...] the first bitter taste of that terrible illusion: Hope.”

Raziel impaled on Kain's sword. — *Soul Reaver: Defiance (Amy Hennig, 2003)*

References/resources

Breeze, Sophie. “Queering the Vampire.” Antithesis Journal, Antithesis Journal, 10 Sept. 2021, https://www.antithesisjournal.com.au/blog/2021/9/10/queering-the-vampire.
Cromwell, Gina. “Gothic Definitions.” The Female Gothic, College of Charleston, 2021, https://blogs.cofc.edu/the-female-gothic/the-female-gothic/gothic-definitions/.
F, Claire. “A Glimpse of Genre: The Gothic Romance.” Toledo Lucas County Public Library, TLPL, 31 Oct. 2017, https://www.toledolibrary.org/blog/a-glimpse-of-genre-the-gothic-romance.
Hawkins, Katharine. “Monsters in the Attic: Women’s Rage and the Gothic.” M/C Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, 13 Mar. 2019, https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1499.
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Primuth, Richard. “Vampires Are Us .” The Gay & Lesbian Review, Mar. 2014, https://glreview.org/article/vampires-are-us/.
Somerton, James. Monsters in the Closet - A History of LGBT Representation in Horror Cinema (Video Essay) . YouTube, YouTube, 21 Oct. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPCM14-SCQ.
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Tringali, William A. “Not Just Dead, But Gay! Queerness and the Vampire.” Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater State University, 2016, pp. 1–63. BSU Honors Program Theses and Projects, https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=honors_proj.
Tyler, Jonathan. “The Trail of Blood: Queer History through Vampire Literature: A Thesis.” University of Alabama in Huntsville, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2017, pp. 1–48. UAH Electronic Theses and Dissertations, https://louis.uah.edu/uah-theses/221/.

Jessica Hill (she/they) is a disabled, queer, nonbinary pixel artist and (occasional) writer. Read more of their writing on Substack, and find their art (along with ways to support them) on Kofi and Patreon. Follow them on Twitter @gothycrip for streams of consciousness, mostly revolving around old games, monsters, horror, and cats.

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