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"The lesson will be taught in due time, Aloy. Until then, we wait." This article contains heavy spoilers. Read ahead with caution.
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"There's so much to learn, and less time than I'd hoped." This article or section does not reflect changes introduced by new releases in the series.You can help by updating the contents. |
Amadis Beit Raveesh is a character in the Horizon Zero Dawn comic series,[1] and a returning character in Horizon Forbidden West.[2] Formerly a Carja noble, his actions during the Red Raids led him to become a fugitive, living in the woods outside of the village of Rising Light, where he is a mysterious figure of local legend.
History[]
Amadis was born into the noble Beit Raveesh family, of which he was the last descendant. He was raised in a manor near the village of Rising Light, far from the Carja capital of Meridian. As a result, Amadis was ignorant of the increasingly tyrannical nature of the reigning Sun-King, Jiran, and so as a young man he enlisted as an officer in the newly begun Red Raids, driven by naive patriotism.
The Red Raids[]
Amadis was assigned to the Southern Spear Division and sent into the Forbidden West, where he witnessed his fellow soldiers commit mass killings against the Utaru. Horrified by the carnage, Amadis attempted to help one of the injured Utaru, but was confronted by another soldier. After a brief scuffle, Amadis accidentally unmasked the other soldier, revealing her to be a woman in disguise. The soldier, Nessa, had pretended to be a man in order to join the army, but was similarly perturbed by the cruelty of the Red Raids; from that point on, Nessa and Amadis secretly worked together to undermine their comrades and protect those targeted by the raids.
One evening, while planning strategy with his superior, General Gediah Kho Veriv, Amadis learned that the general had sent Nessa's unit on a mission to attack a force of Tenakth. Amadis protested that the Carja troops would be completely outnumbered by the united opposition of all three Tenakth clans, and that the engagement was sure to be a slaughter. When the drunk Gediah callously dismissed these concerns, Amadis threatened to report him to Carja high command. Gediah attempted to bar his exit, and after Amadis pushed past him, he pulled a knife, lunging at Amadis from behind. Amadis countered, but in doing so he drove the general's knife into his body, killing him. Realizing he would be considered a traitor, Amadis fled towards the front lines, hoping he could at least prevent the doomed attack and save Nessa. Unfortunately, he arrived too late, and found only Nessa's helmet lodged among corpses and smoldering debris.
Amadis salvaged a portion of Nessa's helmet, which he wore as a pendant from then on. He became a fugitive, fleeing from both the Carja army and aggrieved members of Gediah's family, the Kho Veriv, who placed a bounty on his head and burned down his childhood home. Amadis took up residence in a cave outside his home village of Rising Light, where he became known to the villagers as "the man in the woods", and gained a reputation for disliking strangers. He continued to live in exile throughout the end the Red Raids and Jiran's reign, a period of 5 years.[3]
Meeting Talanah[]
When Talanah was injured and left unconscious by a pack of Clawstriders in the wilds, Amadis brought her to his cave and bandaged her wounds, utilizing his supply of healing herbs. Although he left before she could awake, he provided her with a pack containing several days' supply of food.
After Talanah recovered, Amadis once again stepped in to rescue her, this time from a black-armored Clawstrider that was poised to attack her and a boy from the village, Talvo. Amadis distracted the machine with a smoke bomb, and prevented Talanah from firing on it, telling her to abandon the hunt and flee. After the group reached higher ground and escaped the machine, Amadis sent Talvo home, asking him to keep their encounter a secret.
Turning his attention to Talanah, Amadis accused her of being part of the hunter Kyran's party, the Burnished Sons, which had been drawing dangerous machines to Rising Light through reckless hunting practices in the pursuit of trophies. As they argued, Amadis revealed his name to Talanah, and that he was the one who had bandaged her wound. Talanah denied Amadis' accusations, claiming that her only goal was to destroy the black Clawstrider, a dangerous new breed of machine known as Apex machines that threatened the village's safety. When Amadis asked how she knew this, Talanah told him of an earlier encounter she had with a similar machine, where she witnessed its destructive capabilities firsthand.
Hunting the Black Clawstrider[]
Although Amadis attempted to dissuade Talanah from pursuing the machine due to her injuries, he begrudgingly agreed to work together with her to destroy the machine, and the two set off to follow its tracks. Along the way, Talanah requested they stop so she could rest and rebandage her wounds, and the two rested near a dilapidated manor. After some questioning from Talanah, Amadis cryptically replied that the manor was a source of trouble, and he had hoped its ruin would bring peace to Rising Light. When Talanah pressed further, he revealed that the manor was once home to a Carja noble who left to fight in the Red Raids, disgraced his family name, and left the manor to ruin. Talanah pointed out the presence of a large insignia burned on the manor's wall, indicating that the manor was defaced by the Kho Veriv, a powerful Carja family.
Just then, the two discovered the corpse of a mercenary from the Burnished Sons. Examining tracks nearby, Talanah and Amadis deduced that the dead man was killed during a fight with a Clawstrider, which the other mercenaries ultimately defeated and dragged away as proof that they had fulfilled the hunting contract. The pair also discovered the distinct tracks of the black Clawstrider, following the hunters. Amadis pointed out that the hunters would be headed towards Sunbreak Valley to turn in their kill to a group of trappers living there, the ones responsible for issuing the hunting contract.
Battle at Sunbreak Valley[]
Talanah and Amadis redoubled their pace, and came to Sunbreak Valley. While searching for signs of the Clawstrider, they overheard arguing between Duvad, the leader of the trappers, and Kyran, who was demanding payment for the contract. As the duo observed the dispute, Amadis suggested ignoring the hunters and pursuing the black Clawstrider, but Talanah contended that they had an obligation to warn the others of the threat.
Before they could take any action, though, the black Clawstrider appeared in the woods nearby, preparing to attack the assembled group of mercenaries and trappers. Talanah prepared to spring into action, but Amadis refused, intending to lay traps for the machine rather than engaging. Angrily, Talanah abandoned him and jumped into the clearing, shouting a warning to the hunters. The black Clawstrider struck, and in the ensuing battle Talanah narrowly rescued Kyran from the machine's attacks, ending up disarmed herself.
The machine charged as Talanah struggled to stand, but at the last moment Amadis appeared, distracting the Clawstrider and luring it towards himself so he could disable it with a Shock Wire. When the machine was stunned, Talanah reappeared to deliver a leaping kick, knocking the machine off the edge of a nearby cliff into the river below.
Targeted[]
Talanah nearly sailed off the cliff's edge herself, but Amadis grabbed her hand and pulled her up to safety. Before the two could celebrate their victory, though, they found themselves targeted by the bows of the Burnished Sons, as Kyran declared his intent to collect a bounty worth more than Duvad's contract. When Talanah questioned what he meant, Kyran identified Amadis as "the traitor of the Southern Spear", and revealed that he was wanted by the Kho Veriv. Before Kyran could explain further, Amadis grabbed Talanah and jumped off the cliff, pulling them both into the river below.
After being carried downriver by the current, the pair swam ashore further downriver, near the base of a waterfall. As they took refuge in a cave behind the waterfall and dried their soaked equipment, Talanah demanded an explanation from Amadis. He explained his past to her, revealing his involvement in the Red Raids, the loss of Nessa, and his inadvertent role in the death of Gediah Kho Veriv, all of which left him with feelings of intense guilt. Talanah attempted to comfort him, arguing that he had protected the village of Rising Light, and suggested he try to move forward by honoring Nessa's memory, similar to what Talanah had done after the death of her family.
Before the two could continue their conversation, they overheard the sound of an approaching machine- the black-armored Clawstrider had survived its fall into the river, and was limping through the cave despite being heavily damaged. Talanah ambushed and destroyed the machine, completing her hunt. However, when Amadis suggested she could now return to Meridian, Talanah pointed out that the Clawstrider must have entered the cave for a reason. The two ventured further into the cave, where they discovered a Cauldron next to an underground lake.
Talanah realized the Cauldron could produce an endless supply of deadly machines, further threatening the village, and after some discussion with Amadis she devised a plan to block off the Cauldron by causing a cave-in. The two began to head for the cave's exit, where a nearby herd of Grazers could provide them with the Blaze necessary to cause an explosion, but stopped upon overhearing Kyran commanding the Burnished Sons to search the cave. Although Amadis offered to draw the mercenaries away so that Talanah could execute her plan, she refused, stating that they would find a way out together. Before they could discuss the matter further, however, a massive Shellsnapper emerged from the subterranean lake and attacked the duo.
Sealing the Cauldron[]
While Talanah and Amadis took cover from this unfamiliar new variety of machine, she devised a plan to pit the Shellsnapper against the Burnished Sons, keeping them distracted while Amadis gathered the supplies necessary to seal off the Cauldron. She and Amadis attracted the Shellsnapper's attention, then passed by the Burnished Sons while the machine chased them. After the two reached the cave's exit, they separated, with Talanah staying behind to occupy their enemies and serve as a distraction. At Talanah's request, Amadis gave her his hood, which she used as a decoy to occupy the mercenaries.
Amadis escaped into the nearby forest, where he was able to quickly take down a single Grazer and craft a Blast Bomb. Before he could return, however, he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a Clawstrider. Amadis fled back towards Talanah and the Burnished Sons, bringing the Clawstrider in pursuit. Reaching the lake at the cave's entrance, he found the Burnished Sons engaging both Talanah and the Shellsnapper, but upon noticing his arrival they quickly turned their attention to him. Amadis ran into the water, hoping that the Clawstrider pursuing him would distract the mercenaries, but he was not entirely successful- an arrow struck him directly in the shoulder.
Despite his injury, Amadis persisted wading through the lake, until Talanah shouted for his attention and directed him to dive. Swiftly obeying, Amadis was shielded from a devastating energy pulse released by the Shellsnapper, which Talanah had provoked. Amadis emerged from the water to find the mercenaries incapacitated, and quickly ran into the cave to carry out Talanah's plan. After reaching the Cauldron's entrance, he fired a Blast Bomb at the cave ceiling, then headed towards the mouth of the cave to escape the imminent detonation.
As he exited the cave, Amadis found Talanah running straight towards him, pursued by the Shellsnapper. Shouting a warning, he tackled her into the water, shielding her from the explosion which blasted the machine. As the two emerged from the water, they found that Kyran and his men had recovered, and were now standing atop the motionless Shellsnapper. Kyran gloated over his plans to collect Amadis' bounty and kill Talanah, usurping her place as Sunhawk, but he was interrupted by the reawakening of the machine, which swiftly threw him from its back and crushed him. Talanah quickly grabbed Kyran's spear and sliced open the Shellsnapper's belly, finally destroying it.
Departure[]
A few hours later, as Talanah and Amadis journeyed back to Rising Light, they stopped near Beit Raveesh manor, where Amadis presented Talanah with a flower of Medicinal Wild Ember. He explained that she had restored his self-confidence and given him new hope, but that he now felt he had to part ways from her and return to the Forbidden West. Talanah, expecting a romantic advance, was taken aback; Amadis explained that his intent was to return to the battlefield he had once fled, and lay Nessa to rest, so that he could finally move on.
Talanah wished him well and asked that he write to her in Meridian in two months time; she revealed that she now felt the Hunters Lodge should do more than hunt for trophies, and intended to mold the organization into a protection force against the ever-increasing danger of the machines. Amadis replied that he hoped to see her again when their respective quests were done, and after the two said their goodbyes, he walked away into the woods.
Pursuing Nessa[]
Amadis returned to the site of the Battle of Burning Blooms, where he believed Nessa had fallen. However, an old Utaru named Lel nearby told him this was not necessarily so: a portion of the Carja were captured by the Tenakth rather than killed, and were likely brought to the Rot. Hoping to know the truth about Nessa's fate, Amadis joined an Oseram caravan and entered the Clan Lands via the nearby Spinebreak.
Personality[]
Amadis is blunt and confrontational, but chooses to reveal very little of himself at a time. He seems to have a distaste for machine hunters, preferring to evade machines rather than fight them. Despite this, he does own a makeshift spear.
Associated quests[]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn #3 sneak peek - Twitter
- ↑ Yong Yea's HFW Review Video
- ↑ Amadis himself states this number during Need to Know