“The Langston River flowed free and wild ‘till the Calamity dried it all up. Maybe all that water just grew wings and flew off.”
Bastion’s narration is perhaps one of its most remembered qualities, with plenty of unforgettable lines spoken in the rich, deep drawl of the Narrator. But I believe that the best example of just how powerful this narration can be, and how it elevates the experience, is in the Narrator’s depiction of Weeping Nellie at Langston River. In fact, when I finally got around to playing this 2011 title last year, Langston River was the point of no return — it sold me on the adventure.
“Weeping Nellie. She sends some Squirts crying home as she leaves port. Maybe Nellie knows the way to the Core. Maybe she can slip right past all the clamor on the coast. Or maybe not.”
Nellie is nothing more than a jumble of lightly decorated wooden planks and a strip of personified marble, but the narration transforms her into something more: she’s the ship that’s going to get you where you need to go, no matter the cost.
“They try to cut her off… They try to slow her down… They try to knock her out… Well, Weeping Nellie tries harder.”
Defending Nellie from her attackers is, for me, one of the most dramatic moments in Bastion, and it’s all thanks to the narration that I cared about this bundle of wood. I believed it was doing me a solid.
It’s hard not to recount Weeping Nellie’s entire journey across Langston River because it left such an impression on me; by the end of it, I was teary-eyed and ready to wreak vengeance in the name of poor old Nellie. She got me where I needed to go, and her sacrifice would not be in vain.
