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-- PLEAD, My Dump Of Words Considered An Essay That Describes How Deeply This Song Impacts Me. Shockingly, Its From A Roblox Game. Wonders. --
- INTRODUCTION OF SORTS? HOOK? THESIS?? A COMBI??
You may be thinking this is just some long rant about the Forsaken lore in some mish-mash attempt at convincing you to play it, but no. I'll be discussing how the song PLEAD impacts me emotionally, even though it is naught but an instrumental piece for a video game.
- BACKGROUND INFORMATION
For context, PLEAD is a song produced by Key After Key that originates from a Roblox game by the name of Forsaken, created by the Forsaken Dev Team. It is apart of special Last Man Standing themes in the game, where there is only the Killer and one Survivor remaining. The killer and survivor in this specific are c00lkidd and 007n7 respectively. The reason they have an exclusive Last Man Standing theme rather than the classic one is due to their bond as father and son, with 007n7 being c00lkidd's adoptive father, and c00lkidd being his 10 year old son. You may be wondering who those even are, but fret not, as I will explain. c00lkidd is a joyous and whimsical child who takes on the role of being a Killer in this game, although he is not fully aware of his actions. Due to the influence of an entity known as The Spectre, c00lkidd believes that it's all just one big game of tag. Whenever he kills a survivor, c00lkidd does not know they are dead, rather thinking that they simply got tired of playing and fell asleep. 007n7 is a tired and exhausted father, taking on the role of being a Survivor. 007n7 uses his abilities as a retired exploiter to assist him during rounds, allowing him to escape perilous situations easily. Unfortunately, he is fully aware of c00lkidd's role and his actions, but is unable to do anything other than try his hardest to survive. A tragic fate indeed. Now that you have all necessary background information, lets move onto the actual topic of this essay!!
- REASON 1: THE BOND BEHIND IT ALL.
As I previously clarified in the background information segment, c00lkidd and 007n7 are father-and-son, bound to a tragic fate. 007n7 is left helpless and unable to do anything while what was once his precious child wreaks chaos and death upon others. Meanwhile, c00lkidd isn't even aware of what he's doing, simply thinking that they're just playing tag. c00lkidd could murder his father in cold blood, and wouldn't even know. Of course, that's just what's on the surface level. Would I really be writing this if I wasn't going to be diving unnecessarily deep? Let's start off with 007n7. Before being Forsaken, 007n7 was a rather infamous exploiter, known for hacking and terrorizing games. Until one day, he opened his door to find a small baby on his doorstep. At that moment, 007n7 decided that he wanted to give this child the best life he could, so he retired from exploiting. For 10 whole years, 007n7 tried his hardest to raise c00lkidd responsibly, and for a while it seemed like life was good. Though c00lkidd followed his father's footsteps of exploiting and hacking, they had a strong and loving familial bond. Then things took a turn for something much, much worse.
The Spectre had Forsaken them, and split them apart. 007n7 was permanently torn away from his son, and c00lkidd was turned into a mindless killer.
This would obviously fill him with grief and pain, as the separation of child from parent is no easy one. 007n7 would also likely feel lots of guilt, for being unable to protect his son from this fate. Fear would also play into this as well, both fear of what may have happened to c00lkidd and whether he is safe, and also the fear of what his son has become. And finally, terrible, terrible amounts of sorrow. Sorrow is to grief, as leaves to trees. They go hand in hand. After all, who wouldn't be absolutely devastated at loosing their child in so many ways? 007n7 lost c00lkidd physically, being unable to communicate with him whatsoever besides from the rounds, he lost c00lkidd mentally, as c00lkidd is completely oblivious to the truth of their fate, and he lost c00lkidd emotionally. No longer are they able to enjoy peaceful, wholesome moments, bonding as parent and child. Instead, every interaction the two will ever have will be filled with fear and pain. PLEAD only intensifies this torrent of emotions, as 007n7 has to fend off against his own son during Last Man Standing. That once innocent boy brutally killed all of 007n7's teammates. The true realization of what c00lkidd has become finally sets into 007n7, and all he can do is plead for mercy.
Now, time for c00lkidd's part in this. You may be thinking that there isn't much pain to c00lkidd beside the fact he's not aware of what he's doing, but you'd be wrong. As stated by one of the Forsaken developers, c00lkidd slowly begins to realize what he's done at the end of each round. The Spectre quickly reinforces its influence, sending c00lkidd back into that "its just a game of tag" mindset. This creates the vicious cycle of constant horror and guilt, before being forced back into oblivion. In every round where c00lkidd were to kill 007n7, he would have to deal with the emotional weight of finding out he just murdered his own father, and then forgetting it all. Over, and, over. Keep in mind, c00lkidd is only 10. Another detail is the physical changes to c00lkidd. If one were to look at the official cover art for PLEAD, they would notice that c00lkidd is significantly larger than 007n7, in both height and muscle. This isn't due to some odd birth defect, not at all. This is due to The Spectre supposedly altering c00lkidd's physical form to be a more suitable killer due to his young age. While it is currently unconfirmed, one could assume that it was a painful process going from the physique of your average 10 year old to multiple feet taller than a grown man. My final point for this segment is a special animation for c00lkidd. Whenever c00lkidd kills a survivor in game, the kill animation goes as follows; c00lkidd strangling survivor, survivor fighting back, survivors neck gets snapped, c00lkidd tosses them away. This applies to every single survivor, but one. 007n7. The kill animation for c00lkidd killing 007n7 has a few deviations that make such a strong impact, the animation goes as follows; c00lkidd strangling 007n7, 007n7 not fighting back or resisting at all, 007n7's neck gets snapped, c00lkidd gently sets down 007n7. These tiny details, 007n7 refusing to fight against c00lkidd even when faced with death, c00lkidd gently setting his corpse down instead of the usual fling across the map, show that even in death, they still care for each other. Time to move onto my second reason!
- REASON 2: THE ACTUAL SONG!!!
You're probably thinking: 'sunni, you've been yapping so much about the characters, i thought this was about the song!!' and yes, my dear readers, it is. So I present to you.... the section where I break into the song! This is either going to be ridiculously long, or terribly short.
PLEAD is an orchestral rock song, with a well made composition containing multiple musical elements and a variety of instruments. There are two main instruments we will be focusing on; the slide guitar, and the dissonant chords. This is due to what they represent. In the description of the official upload, the songs producer, Key After Key, states that they "... really wanted to depict cries of despair." The cries of despair from who? 007n7, that's who. Key After Key succeeds in this task beautifully, as if one were to take a moment to really listen to PLEAD, they would notice that the slide guitar can be made out to represent that of someone pleading. With this information at hand, we can safely deduce that the slide guitar can represent 007n7. Now, that just leads us with the chords. At 0:51 in the song, we can hear the dissonant chords come into play, a motif to c00lkidd's chase theme READY OR NOT (also produced by K.A.K). The chords get their own spotlight, before at the very end, there's a duet-esque bit where both the slide guitar and chords mix together beautifully. While lacking any official hints, the motif towards c00lkidd's theme with the chords can allow us to safely deduce that the chords can represent c00lkidd. To summarize, the slide guitar is 007n7, and the chords are c00lkidd.
Small details like these are what make PLEAD such an emotional song. Just listening to it makes it feel like you're really there in that moment, watching as a grieving and pained father pleads for his life, as his naive child hunts him down in what was perceived as a game of tag, unaware of the true weight to his actions. You can hear the pleads, long and agonizing. You can feel the grief of the moment, you can feel the fear and the pain. If one were to slow down the song, this effect would only be intensified, as each note would resonate with you wholly, creating a melancholy mood to the song. That's why it impacts me so much. Without using a single word in the song, I can still feel the intensity of the song, I can feel each emotion tied to a scenario, I can visualize myself in that moment, watching it play out. The strength of the song incites those emotions of me, that pain, that sorrow, all of it. It allows me to truly understand the characters and the meaning to the song. All without a word spoken. PLEAD breaks the light hearted and humorous air that usually comes with playing Forsaken, and for a brief moment, creates a shared sense of anguish among those who take a moment to listen. It truly places emphasis on the tragedy that has occurred, and the ruthless cycle that will be in constant repeat for who knows how long.