The Flying Dutchman myth is considered a fata morgana, for example. The documentary she is talking about was probably talking about the fata morgana ((mirage)), an optical phenomenon where rays of light are bent due to thermal inversion and certain objects like islands, boats, castles are reflected from far away and appear to be floating. The Chinese believed that these mirages were real islands in the sky belonging to the Emperors of the afterlife. In a region in China an optical illusion of floating islands is created by particular weather patterns.
The inspiration behind the Floating Islands came from a programme I had seen on the Documentary Channel about Chinese myths. Heather Gibson said in some interview that she was inspired by some Chinese myths involving palaces and mirages and jade, didn't she? So now I have a request to someone who is familiar with Chinese legends so he can make this clear - is the place a heaven, hell, or something completely different ? I also found out that it can be considered as Chinese heaven. (I believe these below are more worthy to be read) On the other hand, after studying these discussions of "what is this place?": Description of the game in Wikipedia mentions the place and redirects to "Diyu", which is considered as realm of the dead or "hell" in Chinese mythology. It's all perfect for an Otherworldly vibe and to really get in the players mind to scare them.Ī similar place can be seen in Indiana Jones an the Emperor's Tomb: If you were Lara, you'd be pretty startled. It's the only place in the game where everyone at first has a "Where the hell am I?" moment. :tmb:Īlso, I think the level designers or whoever came up with the idea for Floating Islands might have done it to really psyche the player out. This is probably the best explanation really. In the next level, when she killed the dragon, she also killed the source of the realm's power, thus the entire realm collapsed on itself and Lara was thrown out of it and back into the human realm. She managed to successfully navigate the "floating islands," defeat the dragon's army, and then snuck inside the lair through a back door. However, this is Lara Croft we're talking about. He allowed Bartoli's body and henchmen to travel across the jade bridge to the Dragon's Lair and afterwards broke the bridge and scattered the remnants throughout the realm so Lara couldn't get across. In order to buy time to fully bond with the host (Marco Bartoli), and to prevent Lara from impeding his resurrection, the dragon distorted his realm to delay her. The Dagger of Xian is a medium that connects the spirit of the dragon with the body of the wielder. Inside this void is a castle made of jade, and inside this jade castle is the Dragon's Lair, where the spirit of the dragon resides. :tmb:Īnyways, my theory on the Floating Islands is that the level takes place in a mysterious realm (void) that transcends time and space. It really paid off though because it's certainly one of my top levels in the game. Core Design obviously took some creative liberties and ambition to build this otherworldly level. The Floating Islands is a peculiar location because it makes absolutely no sense in that, an entire world of floating jade islands exists inside a Temple built inside the Great Wall.
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