Nature of Archviles

So, anybody has a theory on what exactly Archviles are?

My idea so far:

They are minor incarnations of the Antichrist, like evil clones of Jesus, with some limited powers over resurrection and spirits. To me, they always appeared to develop stigmata when resurrecting stuff :-o

Other stuff I heard:

• Possessed corpses
  
• Intelligent monsters
  
• Damned human beings/magicians
  

(ph34r my list tags which may or may not work on this forum)

So what are your ideas?

They are just a bunch of pixels that do what the programmers wanted them to do.

Graf Zahl said:

They are just a bunch of pixels that do what the programmers wanted them to do.

Aww, this answer is spoiling all of the fun :-(.

If so, then we could dismiss all of Doom by saying it's just a bunch of code that behaves so and so...c'mon, let's be a bit more creative ;-)

But then what is life, other than a bunch of atoms doing what their creator wants them to do? :P

Lüt said:

But then what is life, other than a bunch of atoms doing what their creator wants them to do? :P

Even worse, their creator just unleashes them and waits until they reach a "stable configuration" of some sort... then he rolls again :-)

Anyway, back to Archviles:

while most other monsters look either pathetic (zombies), animal-like (barons,pinkies), plain weird and ugly (cacos, pain elementals) or like cyborgs/aliens, the Archvile is IMHO the only monster actually looking evil and unholy in the whole Doom games.

It's the only one having a really wicked and evil look.

Well personaly I prefer Graf's description over yours. For me they are just another demon variant spawned by the Icon of Sin.

Maes said:

...They are minor incarnations of the Antichrist, like evil clones of Jesus, with some limited powers over resurrection and spirits...

Evil clones of Jesus???

I just can't think of an answer to that....

Anyway, what about the archvile being somewhat located between a magical demon and a warrior demon.

The personification of anger, hate in humanoid form.

I just see it as another class of demon. Kinda' funny lookin'... Pretty tough though.

Alboroto said:

The personification of anger, hate in humanoid form.

I once had this weird dream where an Archvile was following me down the street and was dancing behind me, should I start worrying? :-p

Graf Zahl said:

They are just a bunch of pixels that do what the programmers wanted them to do.

You are such a drag, go get laid or something.

Maes said:

I once had this weird dream where an Archvile was following me down the street and was dancing behind me, should I start worrying? :-p

Depends on the song he was dancing to. :P

You see, what you are doing here is taking something that maybe a few people created in a short time and giving it a whole story that never existed. The archvile was created to be a different kind of demon-- one that could make use of the target-following attack. They likely worked out a few designs and thought the final version of the archvile looked the best and worked the best. There was most likely never any real research into religious hogwash when they created this demon. They just made it to have a unique look and attack. All this stuff you're adding is just bologna you're pulling out of your own knowledge of religion and what not, and you're making connections that seem to make sense to you.

Don't treat the archvile like it has a deep history behind it prior to its appearance in Doom 2. It doesn't.

GGG said:

They just made it to have a unique look and attack.

It´s not necessarely as trivial. When you do something creative like inventing a new demon for a certain purpose in the game, there are always multiple influences in the background when you are doing this. And sometimes there is actually more to it then you might think.

For example the sounds of the Archvile:

Bobby Prince says: "The Archvile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Archvile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon."

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Arch-Vile

See what I mean? You can always assume "they just took a random sound that would fit", but sometimes there´s more to it.

Alboroto said:
Depends on the song he was dancing to. :P

for the love of god don't say Plutonia MAP11!!!!1!!1!1 one

DeumReaper said:

for the love of god don't say Plutonia MAP11!!!!1!!1!1 one

Nah, he/it was doing some weird silent dance, much like somebody following you and jumping and twisting while walking.

PLus, that "archvile" wasn't very tall, it had a normal height about 1.73 m :-)

About religion and stuff: ok so it just may be another run-off-the-mill demon, part of a generic ugly bunch, but IMO it's the only one that really looks somewhat wicked in the whole pre-Doom 3 franchise, the rest just look beastly or cartoony.

Tetzlaff said:

It´s not necessarely as trivial. When you do something creative like inventing a new demon for a certain purpose in the game, there are always multiple influences in the background when you are doing this. And sometimes there is actually more to it then you might think.

Of course a certain level of planning had to go into the demon, and some degree of character would have emerged, influenced or not. It just isn't the type of thing that stretches into many historical contexts.

Bobby Prince says: "The Archvile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Archvile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon."

I love this description as it makes the Arch-Vile absolutely special :) I always knew when I was playing Doom that the Arch-Vile wasn't like all the other monsters. Not just his attack and resurrecting powers, it was also the style of this monster... it was different from any other... and I always loved to fight him because he was a real challenge, he didn'T seem to be a dumb zombie or a blood-raging demon, he was clever, he was intelligent and equal being

Archviles were always different to me. They acted different than the other monsters, attacked out of nowhere, and could be exploited. They have a insane tolerance for pain, and it's almost impossible to make them flinch. I hate them, and they hate me.

The creation of the archvile:

One day after giving birth to several thousand new demons after the Doomguy slaughtered all her babies, the icon of sin decided, "Hey, why should I have to replace every single demon that dies? Why don't I just pop out something that could revive all the dead ones?"
So she had a revenant knock up a baron of hell and thus, the archvile was born.

I always thought they might have had some kinda cybernetics or something because of the "wake up" sound.

yeah, i also heard people talk about him "laughing" i never could hear it though.

Shadow Dweller said:

yeah, i also heard people talk about him "laughing" i never could hear it though.

He must kill you pretty quick, huh?

I always loved that evil laugh of his, thats why I listen to it in the safety of Wintex lol.

Shadow Dweller said:

yeah, i also heard people talk about him "laughing" i never could hear it though.

Well, I wouldn't describe any of the Archvile sounds as "laughing":

His wakeup sound sounds somehow mechanical, his roaming sound sounds like a creepy "Uh-ah ah...." (maybe that's what most people describe as evil laughter) and his death sound sounds like a painful "Oi oi oi...." to me :-S

Yeah, to me it was always a low-tone gurgling noise for his active noise. his waking up noise and death noise i could never associate with other noises people claimed to hear. even listining to them over and over again in XWE proved nothing to me.

I love how he completely disassemble when he dies.

Technician said:

I love how he completely disassemble when he dies.

Priceless, especially after DB shotty blast!

or even if u just cap him with a pistol, it's always funny

Maes said:

PLus, that "archvile" wasn't very tall, it had a normal height about 1.73 m :-)

In my opinion, if you ran into one of them un-holy sons of bitches, they would top off at about 7'0 even. IMO.

Inferno said:

or even if u just cap him with a pistol, it's always funny

beating him down with the fist must be hilarious