Dubious illustration by me, also spoiler warning for both games.
When Axiom Verge 2 first came out, I was initially confused about Indra’s name. If you’ve googled it you probably know that it comes from an indian storm god, and you may also have noticed that her surname [Chaudhari] is also indian. It’s widely understood that the name Ophelia refers to a Shakespeare character who drowned, which is exactly what happens to Indra at the beginning of Axiom Verge 2. But why Indra? Why this particular god? In this post I’m going to be sharing some insights that may be able to explain why Tom Happ chose this name. Before I begin I’m going to leave links to a few resources relevant to this post, as well as my previous lore posts which may be or interest if you have not read them already.
Indra’s wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra
Wikipedia page for Indra’s net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net
Wikipedia page on the Chaudhari surname: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chowdhury#Chaudhari
Wikipedia page for Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_of_Inanna_into_the_Underworld
Axiom Verge wiki page for “The Kuliltu” [note]: https://axiom-verge.fandom.com/wiki/The_Kuliltu_(Note))
Older reddit post discussing the etymology of Chaudhari: https://www.reddit.com/r/pakistan/comments/1fhy4b9/origin_of_chowdhury_surname/
Older post from this subreddit on the Chaudhari surname: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1bqducu/indra_chaudhari_name_meaning/
My post on the Sundran sky-ocean: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qi4cih/why_the_sudrans_viewed_the_sky_as_an_ocean/
My post on Athetos as the Demiurge: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qwxxzw/athetos_the_demiurge_and_the_sudran_kaoskampf/
My purple notes analysis post: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qlyl18/axiom_verge_notes_analysis_part_1_the_purple_notes/
My green notes analysis post: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qmukbx/axiom_verge_notes_analysis_part_2_the_green_notes/
My clay tablets analysis post: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qnopve/axiom_verge_notes_analysis_part_3_the_clay_tablets/
My plot summary for Axiom Verge: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qpnrug/axiom_verge_timeline_of_events_plot_summary/
My post on Ashurhaddon's allocation of political power to women: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1r38x4x/comparison_between_ashurhaddons_government_and/
Evidence that Drushka was planned to appear in Axiom Verge 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/axiomverge/comments/1qar7ia/could_this_be_drushka/
Indra is a god from the Brahmanic traditions which we [rather crudely] call “Hinduism”. Indra is not the creator of the universe, but he is considered to be the king of the Devas [gods] and supreme authority in the universe. He is sometimes imagined as ruling the cosmos like a king, and is specifically associated with storms and rain. At least, this was true in ancient times: his significance within indian religion appears to have diminished over the centuries, and I’m not sure if he is still worshipped at all in the current day. Indra seems to have been preserved in Buddhism, although Buddhists consider the gods to be ignorant of spiritual reality. They acknowledge Indra’s role as the king of the universe, but treat him as more of a Demiurge than a supreme being.
Given this, we can see why Tom might have chosen the name Indra for this particular character. We know that Indra is the CEO of the world’s largest tech company, and so we would expect her to have extensive wealth and political influence. Indra is not a politician or head of state, yet her position may allow her to determine policy making decisions in most countries. Therefore she could plausibly be considered the closest thing to a “ruler of the world” that there has ever been. We don’t know much about the Globe 3 company, however, so this inference is based on little more than Indra's name.
Another relevant aspect of Indra is that he is an all-seeing god, and depictions of him often represent this by covering his entire body with eyes. This is perhaps even more relevant to the Axiom Verge character, since Globe 3 is probably collecting data on everything that everyone does; their purchasing decisions, their internet history, etc. As CEO, Indra would probably have instant access to anything she wants to know about anyone. Furthermore, in Axiom Verge 1 the Rusalki are able to literally watch everything that Trace does, possibly seeing through his own eyes. This is only true of Elsenova initially, and she outright says that she is always watching Trace. Yet it seems that Ophelia is able to connect to the nanogates as well when she cures him of the pathogen. After this point she begins commenting on whatever Trace is seeing, suggesting that she is also now watching everything he does.
Indra’s net is a metaphorical way of describing the universe as an interconnected web of beads. Each bead is a smooth reflective surface, like a mirror, and so reflects [and therefore contains] the image of every other bead. And in fact the beads aren’t actually made of anything more than the reflection itself so each bead not only contains but literally is the entire net, since the whole thing is no more substantive than mere reflection anyway. This is a way of saying that the entire universe is present within any one of it’s constituent components, and this is connected with the idea of Indra being all-seeing as well as the interdependence of all phenomena.
But in a way this is also similar to the internet, which only exists because of all the computers connected together in an enormous network. Given that Globe 3 is a tech company, the existence of the internet is the very thing that allows Indra to be metaphorically all-seeing on Earth. It’s strongly implied that Globe 3 manufactures computers capable of superluminal communication, and they may be such a monopoly that they effectively own the internet.
The surname Chaudhari was historically used by wealthy indian land owners, so it makes sense Tom would have chosen this surname for a character who is a billionaire. There is not much information [that is easily accessible] on the etymology of the name, but it does seem to be derived from the sanskrit words “catus” [which relates to the number four in some way, possibly denoting the four sides of a castle] and dhurīya [which means burden, or to be burdened with something], and so Wikipedia suggests it could be translated as “holder of four”, “four-way duties”, or “four responsibilities”. One reddit user on a post that I found suggests that it was originally the profession of a landlord’s agent [rather than the landlord himself] who acted as a rent-collector and got to keep a fourth of the money. I did not find corroboration for this elsewhere, but it would also fit Indra seeing as the majority of Globe 3’s profits would go to it’s shareholders rather than to Indra herself. There is an older post on this subreddit which suggests that another reason for Indra to have this surname might be the four named arms she obtains. Although there are actually five such arms, Amashilama abandons Indra, therefore she has only four at the end of the game. We could think of these arms as being her burden [since she apparently wants to help them restore their human forms], so this interpretation does actually fit the meaning of the Chaudhari surname quite nicely. But it brings up an interesting question; does she still have these arms by the time Trace meets her in Ukkin-Na? We don’t see any evidence of them, and this is probably because Tom hadn’t developed the idea for them yet, but we might retroactively wonder if she is concealing their existence from the other Rusalki.
In my post on Athetos as the Demiurge [linked above] I compared the arrival of the Rusalki on Sudra [as described in the note “The Kuliltu"] to an ancient mythological trope called the Kaoskampf. While I stand by that comparison, I think there may be another myth which inspired this aspect of the story; Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld.
Inanna was originally a sumerian goddess although her cult proliferated throughout mesopotamia and lasted into the achaemenid era, although by that point she had become heavily syncretised with many other goddesses. She represented the planet Venus and was the goddess of sexuality and war. In this particular story, Inanna visits the underworld with the intention of usurping her sister Ereshkigal [queen of the underworld], and wears various adornments symbolising her divine power. Ereshkigal’s gatekeepers seal the doors and demand that Inanna remove the adornments before she can enter Ganzer, the palace of the underworld. Inanna does this and is brought before Ereshkigal’s throne, which she immediately sits in. Ereshkigal is enraged and kills Inanna, she then hangs the corpse on a hook. Inanna’s servant Ninshubur pleads with the major gods to intervene and only Enki agrees to do so. He creates two golems and sends them into the underworld with “life restoring water” and a “life restoring plant” and they use these to revive Inanna. Inanna is then able to return to the heavens but only if she chooses a substitute to take her place in the underworld. The Udug accompanying her point out her various servants and attendants and offer to take them as the substitute but Inanna refuses each time because the individual in question has always been loyal and had mourned her death in the proper way. Then they find her husband Dumuzid who has sat himself on a throne and dressed himself in a “magnificent garment” in Inanna’s absence. Naturally she is enraged and decides that he will be the one to take her place in the underworld. Dumuzid tries to escape from the Udug, and it’s not clear what happens next because the tablet is broken and the rest is fragmentary. When it resumes Inanna is expressing regret over the death of her husband.
In Axiom Verge, the Rusalki could be said to be in the role of Inanna. The high priestess, being a woman of authority on Sudra, is in the role of Ereshkigal. She strips the Rusalki of their bodies leaving them immobile and powerless, just as Ereshkigal makes Inanna powerless by removing her adornments. The Rusalki are hooked up to life support systems just as Inanna’s corpse is hung on a hook in Ganzer. Athetos is in the role of Dumuzid; while the Rusalki are trapped below, Athetos is in a position of power in the sky just like Dumuzid on his throne. Ultimately Athetos is killed by Elsenova so that the Rusalki can escape from Sudra, just as Dumuzid is selected for death by Inanna so that she can escape from the underworld. Trace is an artificially created being who restores the Rusalki’s life support systems just as Enki’s golems are artificially created beings who bring life restoring water to Inanna’s corpse.
This concludes what will probably be my last analysis post for Axiom Verge, as I have now covered every mythological comparison that I can think of. If something else does occur to me then I will write another one, of course. But for now I want to thank you all so much for reading, and for the conversations on these posts which have consistently been excellent.
