Shadows (Shadow of the Colossus)

The Shadows in Shadow of the Colossus.

The Shadows (or Smokemen, their model and texture names) are beings that are only present in cutscenes from Shadow of the Colossus.

Description

"The black shadow that surrounds Wander in the shrine is part of the Dormin. The bones and muscles that form the body are the colossus, and the shadow is the blood that flows through it. So when you combine them all, you get Dormin. After the colossus is defeated, the shadows surround Wander and look down at him, hoping that he will defeat them all soon (laughs)." - The shadows as described in the artbook in the Existance of Dormin section.

The first glimpse of the shadows is in the very opening scene as Wander arrives in the central Shrine of Worship. When five of them come out of the ground and approach Wander and Agro slowly, until Wander pulls out the Ancient Sword and shines them with light, disintegrating them.

The role of the shadows is not to be an enemy that the player needs to defeat like the ones in ICO, but to depict Wander's progress until the end of the ritual. Each time Wander defeats a colossus, he is transported back to the Shrine of Worship where he is unconscious, surrounded by a number of shadows equal to the number of colossi defeated.

Music

The music Black Blood seems to relate to these shadows. Besides the name being an obvious indicator, it plays when they first appear and also after Wander is stabbed in the ending, possessed by the dead.

Trivia

• One of the shadows in ICO resembles the model used in Shadow of the Colossus: The Cleaner.
• The shadows at the opening, ending, and the ones that appear after a colossus is defeated, all have different sizes set for them. The 15 colossi shadows' sizes are divided by groups of 3:
  • At 1 meter, there's the 3rd, 8th and 13th shadows.
  • At 1.17 meters, there's the 2nd, 7th and 12th shadows.
  • At 1.25 meters, there's the 4th, 9th and 14th shadows.
  • At 1.34 meters, there's the 1st, 6th and 11th shadows.
  • And at 1.51 meters, there's the 5th, 10th and 15th shadows.