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Fridge Brilliance

  • Samus seems particularly nonchalant except against the most serious of threats, even casually dealing with Corpius and Kraid when they were down to their last stand, which seems at odds with the rest of the series… but it makes sense. Not only has she already had a sense of self-confidence throughout the series (besides Other M), but this game is the tail end of the franchise thus far. Contrast to Prime, where she may stride but is still always cautious and on-guard to shoot the nearest threat; that was a Samus fresh off beating Mother Brain the first time, still in her relative rookie period. Meanwhile, Dread has her give off a Seen It All aura, killing with brutal efficiency before moving onto the next objective. She's not even all that startled by her Bag of Spilling since Fusion happened so shortly ago for her; the only things that really get her cautious are Raven Beak, a few ambushes, and the bigger X bosses. After an entire series, Samus is firmly in Experienced Protagonist territory, and it shows.
  • Samus' iconic Shoulders of Doom were always somewhat obtrusive, and even if they did in some way power her armour as suggested, they would still obscure her vision somewhat. The reveal of armoured Chozo Soldiers explains the design: the Chozo have much longer necks and wider shoulders than humans, letting them easily see around the shoulderpads. Samus' shoulders are likely a relic from the original Chozo design.
  • Raven Beak referring to Samus as the last and most powerful Metroid, something the fandom also does. Looks like Nintendo watches Metroid sites, talk about Ascending Fan ideas.
  • The Bag of Spilling effect that happens right at the start of the game makes even more sense when you realize that as a senior Mawkin Chozo, Raven Beak would have access to command codes that he could use to lock Samus out of using her powerups, at least until she finds replacement copies that haven't been sealed out by him. Chozo DRM is serious business.
    • Alternatively, all of Samus's abilites from Fusion apart from the Bombs, Power Bombs, and Missile variants were gotten from creatures the X had copied which Samus then absorbed into herself. So "physical amnesia" could very well explain how she lost most of her abilities. The above could still be true for the missiles and what-not though.
    • Building on this, Raven Beak likely has knowledge of several of the weapons and abilities that Samus had retained from Fusion. However, there is one particular combat-viable weapon that she did not have in Fusion — the Storm Missiles obtained from Escue — and subsequently did not use against him in their first fight. Raven Beak would have less knowledge of her using the Storm Missiles against him, and coincidentally it's also one of the best weapons to use in his battle.
  • The areas in the game follow an Alphabetical Theme Naming, but are seemingly visited by Samus out of order (Samus starts at Artaria, but then goes straight to Cataris instead of Burenia, a later area). This may look strange at first, but makes sense when you look at the map. The areas are organized by depth, going from farthest to closest in relation to the surface, with Artaria being the deepest region, then Burenia, then Cataris and so on. It eventually culminates into Itorash, which is literally aboveground, in the sky.
  • It seems strange that the E.M.M.I., designed by the Galactic Federation to be the ultimate field DNA extractor, would have designated E.M.M.I. zones that they cannot patrol outside of. It defeats the whole purpose of exploring and it raises question as to how these zones were set up if ZDR was a recently discovered planet. But when Quiet Robe reveals that Raven Beak reprogrammed the E.M.M.I. to extract Samus's DNA, it suddenly starts to make more sense. The E.M.M.I. zones were not part of the Federation protocol, but rather something that Raven Beak created for the E.M.M.I. robots. But why would he limit the E.M.M.I. to these zones? Because Raven Beak wants to make Samus grow more powerful so that her Metroid DNA will realize its full potential, and so he gives her a fighting chance.
    • Relatedly, the beginning of the game has ADAM avert a lot of Show, Don't Tell by telling Samus about the E.M.M.I.'s capabilities, behavioural patterns, and what she should do around them, whereas other games would have demonstrated this through gameplay and interacting with the E.M.M.I. repeatedly. This seems odd until it's revealed that the ADAM you're speaking to is actually Raven Beak, and he's intentionally constructed Samus's ordeal throughout ZDR to push her to her limits against strong, relentless foes to fully awaken the Metroid DNA within her. In effect, he's like a game master setting out the rules for the challenger to proceed throughout the maze-like corridors of the planet, with the E.M.M.I. units functioning as persistent obstacles that must be treated differently than any other foe in the game — just like the player themselves have to treat the E.M.M.I. encounters.
    • The first E.M.M.I. encountered is almost specifically weakened to teach Samus how to kill them, lacking the armour plating, mobility, or climbing function of the others, and the central unit Samus drains to form the Omega Cannon with is already dead when she enters the room. With the above in mind, plus the fact that the first E.M.M.I. isn't even fought in an E.M.M.I. Zone, it's clear that this was intentional, as a Warmup Boss designed to showcase to Samus how to handle the E.M.M.I. going forward. Of note is that the fully-functioning White E.M.M.I. that Samus encounters as the first 'proper' E.M.M.I. encounter lacks the ability to crawl into small spaces, despite ADAM claiming it's a standard feature and the rest of the E.M.M.I. units having it, whereas the white one can't do it even when it's not damaged. In that regard, it's likely that Raven Beak intentionally disabled the white E.M.M.I.'s ability to do so in order to give the weakened Samus a fighting chance to avoid it, meaning that even the first 'complete' E.M.M.I. she faces isn't fully capable as it would be. The first E.M.M.I. also being damaged where the others are not also makes sense — rather than fighting and damaging all seven E.M.M.I. himself, Raven Beak only damaged one of them enough to subdue it, hack into its systems, and from there hack into the others to reprogram all of them at once, so as to best utilize the full capabilities of the machines against Samus without having to break them all first.
    • ADAM treats the E.M.M.I. Zones like it's a natural part of the E.M.M.I. protocol even though the first E.M.M.I. is encountered outside of the zone and it's evident that the E.M.M.I. zones were created by Raven Beak rather than the Galactic Federation. This is one of your earliest hints that you are not talking to ADAM at all, but rather Raven Beak. Also on the subject of Raven Beak impersonating ADAM, given the Chozo's technological advancements, it's likely he was using the Itorash's communications protocol to packet-sniff Samus' gunship and her directions from ADAM as a basis for his imitation.
    • By all means, this could also explain the game's general linearity despite being fairly hands-off compared to Fusion. From her encounters, to having to survive the E.M.M.I. that always are strategically in her path to progress even if you try Sequence Breaking, to the release of the X Parasites from Elun and the battles with them in the aftermath, the entire game is one gigantic planetary research facility that Raven Beak hastily improvised as an insane training ground for Samus. This is likely the only game in the series where an antagonist can claim that for the whole game, besides the Space Pirates pre-designing their areas and defenses, and parading around as ADAM only reinforces guiding Samus to where he needs her to be.
    • In hindsight, the final E.M.M.I. (07PB) is also the one where Raven Beak likely intended to end his test upon Samus one way or another. Shortly before you face it, Samus has her encounter with an escaped lab experiment and visibly has to resist giving into her Metroid instincts... something that the game makes a point of showing Raven Beak watching. Shortly after that, the final E.M.M.I. forcibly puts Samus in a do-or-die situation where she either gives into her Metroid instincts and drains it, or she is dead. You're not given any chance whatsoever to evade unlike the other E.M.M.I., and this would suggest that Raven Beak decided to give Samus one final push to either get her to show her powers or die, and he amplified its visual and auditory detection abilities to ensure she could not use the Phantom Cloak to evade it like the rest.
  • Raven Beak claiming that he is Samus' father because he contributed to the DNA enhancements the Zebes Chozo did after Samus was born is a bit of a stretch. He's not the only donor, and Samus didn't personally know him until ZDR. Thing is, that's the point; Raven Beak is such an egomaniac that he assumes that any of his DNA means all the other Chozo doesn't count, and he's trying to screw with Samus even after it's revealed he was hijacking ADAM. Of course he's going to claim that, in order to establish an emotional hold on Samus — which does not work, because if anything, Samus is personally offended by the implication that Old Bird was less of a father than Raven Beak is, and insults the memory of Grey Voice, a genetic contributor who gave his life to save her. No wonder she comes to personally hate him by the end of the game.
    • Samus has a refreshing reaction to Raven Beak's Luke, I Am Your Father moment: she just doesn't care. She literally just met this narcissistic monster, and has only been manipulated and beaten by him up until now. She knows her bio parents (Rodney and Virginia Aran), her adoptive parents (Old Bird and Gray Voice), and her mentor (Adam Malkovich) have raised her far better than this creep ever could. There is no emotional connection whatsoever.
    • For that matter, Samus was told of his crimes long before The Reveal. She had every tram line and elevator ride to think about how Raven Beak was responsible for the whole Metroid Crisis. The same crisis that would take the lives of Old Bird, Gray Voice, and Adam. Not to mention how many other friends and allies fighting the Space Pirates or rogue elements of the Federation who sought to control the Metroids for their own needs. To her, Raven Beak isn't her father, Raven Beak (indirectly) killed her fathers, on top of numerous others.
  • This is probably one of the hardest games in the series, if not the hardest, but it makes sense; Samus is still suffering from not being at full power after what happened in Fusion. However, it also has one of the most overpowered Samus movesets in the franchise, and by the end game, the difficulty is largely gauged by 100% Completion; actually getting all of your upgrades and item pickups is genuinely a key to survival against Raven Beak and the powerful X-Parasites at their best, instead of simply a completionist bonus that makes the game too easy.
    • On top of this, it's revealed at the end that Raven Beak has been putting Samus through a trial to make her stronger and draw out her burgeoning Metroid powers. It makes a fair bit of sense that Samus would gain quite a bit of power running Raven Beak's gauntlet when he in-fact wants her to become stronger. He values power above all, so naturally, if he's going to have Samus under him, he will not tolerate any weakness whatsoever. Thus, Samus ends up gaining a lot of power, just to keep up with the test Raven Beak is putting her through.
    • With the events of the game being orchestrated as a trial, it's easy to see why Raven Beak left the High Jump Boots out of the equation entirely, despite Samus having already recovered them in Fusion - he knew that their potential in allowing Samus to escape the sandbox of his trial was too great, so he didn't make them available for her to find.
    • The Mawkin are an entire tribe of Blood Knights with the same technology as the Chozo that settled on Zebes or SR388. While the latter two Chozo groups may have decided to lightly terraform those planets to make it easier to travel across them (for a given value of "easy", I'm aware), it's possible that the Mawkin liked living on a Death World from the start. If anything, they may have made getting through ZDR more punishing on purpose all so they could satiate their "power is everything" mindset.
  • The business with the Metroids' tame nature towards the Thoha tribe, hostility towards the Mawkin tribe, and how these elements interact within Samus can be headscratching at first, but upon some closer examination, it all checks out. Samus was to be the Chozo people's collective child, the chosen heiress to all their great works. This would include the Metroids, thus she was given Thoha genes via Gray Voice in order to tame them. By itself, this would create a plot hole, since the Metroids of course don't regard Samus calmly. These genes are offset by Raven Beak's own contribution of Mawkin tribe genes, contributed for the sake of granting Samus the superhuman potential of the Chozo, but at the cost of inheriting the DNA the Metroid react especially violently to in that the Mawkin and Thoha were at odds and the Metroids were bred with that in mind. To make a long story short, the Mawkin genes that make Samus a Super-Soldier cancel out the effect the Thoha genes would have had otherwise to let her interact with Metroids peacefully.
    • It can also help explain some of the Baby Metroid's one-of-a-kind bonding with Samus; it hadn't yet developed a hatred for the Mawkin DNA right off the bat, and instead reacted to the Thoha like a baby detecting its parent or own species naturally, allowing it to imprint immediately after birth and keep calm even after Samus handed it off.
    • Adding onto the above point, this would also explain the last Metroid's initial hostility towards Samus when she finds it again in new Tourian in Super Metroid. No doubt, having matured considerably, it would be acting on instincts and it probably first picked up on Samus's Mawkin genes and attacked. It only recognized the Thoha genes literally at the last second as it had to "see" past an instinctual hate to recognize its foster mother.
  • The behaviour of specific X Parasites seems off at first, until you reach the end of the game:
    • The Core-X that used to be Experiment No. Z-57 dunks itself into lava to avoid being absorbed by Samus. Letting itself seemingly die is behavior completely antithetical to the X, so why did it do that? At the end of the game, a purple X takes over Raven Beak and mutates into a mishmash of every boss Samus faced — including Kraid, who was also fought in a lava-filled area, and also fell into it at the end of his boss fight. The Core-X probably finds Kraid's remains in the lava and absorbs them to become stronger.
    • Then there’s the matter of the X-possessed Quiet Robe. It waits inside Samus' own ship — the only way off the planet that's about to explode — and simply just appears behind her when she makes it back. Instead of commandeering the ship or attacking her, it lets her absorb it. The brilliance kicks in when you recall the game's intro — it states X can absorb and recall their host's memories. (Though it is stated that they can only do this when the host is alive, it wouldn't be the first time assumptions have been made about the X and found to be wrong.) Quiet Robe's memories and desire to aid Samus thus overpower the X’s survival instincts long enough for the X Parasite, and the Thoha tribe's innate ability to control Metroids, to be absorbed into Samus so she could seal off her life-draining powers and be able to escape the exploding ZDR.
    • The X's ability to absorb and recall its hosts' memories is also a possible reason why the purple X (and not any other X infesting the planet) seemingly appeared out of nowhere and assimilated a weakened Raven Beak after his ship crash-landed. One of the purple X's hosts was Kraid, who was captured and abused as a pet/slave by Raven Beak. Kraid's memories would naturally make the purple X pissed at the evil Chozo and find a way to ruin his life, yet possibly impressed with his strength to find and assimilate him — and with old enemy Samus right there too, it also couldn't pass up the chance at taking her out too. By his X assimilating Raven Beak (and quickly getting taken out after), Kraid finally got his revenge on the Chozo who abused him.
    • The matter of Quiet Robe's X copy could be explained even more simply than this: the Thoha had a pacifying effect on Metroids due to their unique genetic variance in the Chozo, and the Metroids were developed and cultivated on SR388 — the homeworld of the X, and grown on the same unique energy sources that gave rise to the parasites. In short, it's incredibly likely the Thoha gene has a similar effect on the X, and assimilating Quiet Robe only served to dampen its instincts, thus leaving the memories and intelligence it mimicked in greater control. Hell, the first thing the "QR-X" does upon awakening is to repeat Quiet Robe's last words to Samus, as though from the moment of its formation, the identity it consumed was beginning to exert greater influence.
    • Another possibility is the X specimen is doing the only thing possible to preserve its species. Samus likely has trace X DNA floating around inside her (depending how the "Metroid vaccine" and absorbing them for power works), and with Quiet Robe's intelligence and memories, this X sample realizes the only way anything X-related is getting off the exploding rock is if it helps Samus do it.
    • In addition to the fridge above, the manga establishes the peaceful Chozo tribes were actually repulsed by direct violence on a genetic level, to the point everyone but Gray Voice surrendered to the space pirates because they were physically incapable of fighting back. Considering the X adapts to the genes of the creatures it mimics, it might not have been able to attack Samus even if it had wanted to.
  • Why does the Quiet Robe X reactivate the E.M.M.I. units after the initial infection? Some thought this was just the X-Parasite trying to spite Samus, yet it's at complete odds with its later actions. What it's really doing is realizing that Samus is going to need those power-ups contained within them, re-enabling Raven Beak's "trial" because it also knows this will potentially awaken her Metroid power. Quiet Robe thoroughly knows Raven Beak's plans and operations, and whether because it's his knowledge that the X version is using to spite its captor despite the risk a Metroid Samus poses to it, or because Quiet Robe's mind pushes through, it knows it needs Samus to finish her mission one way or another.
  • As a Rewatch Bonus, it becomes more and more clear over the course of the game that ADAM is not himself. This culminates near the end, where he begins addressing Samus as "Samus Aran" and tells her to "fulfill her destiny". The real ADAM is much more familiar with Samus than that — it's clearly shown in the opening cutscene. He challenges Samus about the pay for the job, and even calls her Lady. Raven Beak would never do such things.
    • This also has a bit of a tell in terms of just what Raven Beak is. As he's a Chozo that (as the name implies) strongly resembles a raven, and corvids are known to have startlingly good mimicry skills when it comes to human speech, it stands to reason that, between the vocal processor he utilizes to keep up the charade and his naturally inhuman vocal cords, he'd be perfectly capable of impersonating the voice bank of an AI based on a human mind.
  • Raven Beak spares Samus at the beginning of the game, just like how Samus spared the baby Metroid at the end of Metroid II: this time Samus is the last Metroid in the galaxy. The only difference is that Samus' selfless parental relationship with the baby led to it sacrificing its life for her, while Raven's selfish relationship with Samus led to her fighting and killing him. Something something don't abuse your children something.
    • Furthermore, Raven Beak leaves Samus in the deepest part of the planet, with no abilities besides her Fusion Suit itself, the Long Beam, and Missiles. Imprisoned underground, she begins to make her way back to her ship, as Raven Beak prepares to use either her or her Metroid DNA to take over the galaxy. The last Metroid is in captivity… but the galaxy is not at peace.
  • In Corpius' boss chamber, Samus takes a moment to stare at a special Chozo statue with its arm extended. Beating Corpius gives her the Phantom Cloak Aeion ability. The next Aeions that Samus finds are all held by special Chozo statues as well, implying that Corpius knowingly stole the Aeion from the statue in the chamber so it could use it. In retrospect, Samus looking at the statue's hand (indicated by the camera angles) is because she can clearly tell that there's supposed to be something there that isn't, and is wondering where it's gone. In that light, the fact that the Corpius' invisibility causes the section of its tail where it stores the Aeion to glow red is clearly because it's drawing power from it to activate its cloaking.
  • Samus' Metroid power briefly awakens when she sees the mural of Raven Beak ordering the slaughter of the Thoha Chozo. The only other times it involuntarily awakens this early is during moments of extreme stress (i.e. Raven Beak's first attack) — this could mean Samus is terrified at seeing the facsimile of Raven Beak, or it could show her fury at seeing the massacre of the Thoha.
  • Samus speaking to Quiet Robe is a big deal. Throughout the entire series she has barely spoken a word to anyone. Even in the word-heavy Other M she mostly does internal monologues while listening silently to the other characters (except maybe Adam, Anthony, MB, and Madeline). So the fact that she felt compelled to respond to Quiet Robe, reassuring him in their shared tongue, is really touching.
    • Counting the Prime games, she didn't even talk to U-Mos in Prime 2, who was in just as (if not more) awful of a predicament as Quiet Robe. This shows just how much she respects the Chozo.
  • With all Raven Beak's talk of bringing order to the galaxy, he seems to seek peace via iron-fisted rule. Samus submitting to him is crucial to this plan, being technically the last Metroid. In other words, Raven Beak's plan is to get "the last Metroid in captivity" so "the galaxy is at peace".
  • What was Quiet Robe's initial plan to deal with SR388? To seal the Metroids inside the planet, then blow it up and get the hell out of there. Sounds like nuking entire planets is in Samus' Chozo DNA.
  • Raven Beak's ultimate fate is to become an X parasite amalgamation with Kraid, the last of the Space Pirate captains. Raven Beak essentially is a Space Pirate, with a plan identical to Mother Brain's. The X mutation just made him as ugly on the outside as he always was on the inside.
    • Through this Raven Beak also becomes an X, the very thing Metroids were created to destroy. He didn't stand a chance against Samus like that.
    • Furthermore, Raven Beak's name combined with this and the silhouette of his helmet essentially translates to a Stealth Punny Name; Of course a bird-man who is essentially a Space Pirate would be called "Blackbeak".
    • Alternatively, you could look at Raven Beak X's fate as Samus defeating an amalgamation of all the threats she's faced over the course of the mainline games (ignoring the Prime series) — a Space Pirate Commander, an X-Parasite, and Raven Beak himself. There was no way that Samus "I've killed more planets than the Galactic Empire" Aran wasn't going to take it down.
    • If you include the Prime series, Raven Beak X also has aspects of Dark Samus, as he's also a giant monster that was made from someone wearing armor similar to Samus Aran, and also exploited her genetics to try and conquer the galaxy.
  • After X-Parasite assimilation, the Mawkin Tribe Chozo turn into monstrosities with giant ravenous mouths for heads. This makes them literal Maw Kin.
  • Raven Beak is a despicable being, but it seems odd that Samus never even gives him the time of day — while she has ample reason to never sympathize with him or his plan, the levels of visceral disgust she manages seem off for someone who wants to connect to a species she considers her own, or at least her family. On first play-through, it may strike the player as odd that her first reaction to seeing a Chozo at the bottom level, is to train her arm-cannon on him immediately, stranger or not. But Samus is part-Metroid, which turn out to have genetic hard-coding that makes them react aggressively around Mawkin. By the time she's draining him and his ship, she hates him out of instinct as much as everything he's done. The same applies the other way for Quiet Robe when they first appear: Samus's conscious mind is completely on edge, so she keeps her arm cannon up. But she doesn't scramble for distance or get on her feet immediately as a Thoha tribesman doesn't register as an instinctual threat.
  • Raven Beak being revealed to have impersonated ADAM throughout the game adds another layer of context to Samus’ unbridled rage at the mad Chozo. While the ending shows that ADAM was still safe and intact waiting for Samus, we the player and Samus are not aware of this fact yet. As far as Samus knew, Raven Beak destroyed ADAM shortly after their first encounter on Artaria while she was still unconscious, meaning she had lost her old friend and mentor a second time, and here was his killer standing right in front of her, having manipulated her by using ADAM’s voice into doing his bidding. Small wonder she snapped on top of everything else that Raven Beak did.
  • After being grabbed by Raven Beak in the aftermath of their rematch, Samus tries to drain him with her Metroid grip, but specifically goes for his head, over and over. She even grasps his arm in her struggle, but doesn't drain him on touch like that, and only finally works when she taps into turning her whole body into a Metroid and then grabs his face. Pay attention to what she grasps with her hand before against the E.M.M.I., and what Metroid love to bond to — heads. It seems like this confirms that a target's head, or at least central body mass given the cutscene in Zero Mission, is the most valuable target to drain life force energy from.
    • It's no coincidence that Samus' Metroid powers manifest first in her hand. How has she been absorbing the Item Cubes and the E.M.M.I. powers this whole time? Simply touching them with her hand.
    • Also notice the color of the Energy Drain, a distinct pinkish-purple. And it fills your energy, of which your Energy Tanks have the same coloration that has been consistent since Super, and the drops that have been around since even the very first title. One doesn't think about the color of it until now where the energy drain becomes relevant, but it's effectively the culmination of decades of build-up on the consistency of life energy in the series.
    • Because the energy gauge disappears after you kill Raven Beak-X with the Hyper Beam, it's easy to miss the fact that despite draining what would have to be an enormous amount of energy from both Raven Beak and his ship, Samus hasn't recovered any of her energy. When she first uses the ability on an X mimicking a Chozo soldier, her energy tanks aren't immediately refilled until she "swallows" the energy (when she clenches her fist afterwards). This shows that the energy isn't automatically siphoned straight to her own life-reserves and it can be redirected elsewhere. And it also is a subtle demonstration of just how much Samus hates Raven Beak even before she obliterates what's left of him, when she refuses to use even a little of that energy to restore herself.
  • When Samus fully utilizes her Metroid DNA, her suit transforms into a more organic and chitinous form with the iconic green and red coloration to match. But if her suit turned black with blue highlights instead, she would be a spitting image of Dark Samus, also a super-powered Metroid in power armor.
  • Since she loses control of her Metroid suit, Samus cannot use her Aeion abilities without concentration.
  • Samus' rage against Raven Beak is truly an extension of the will of the Tallon Chozo: "Those who deface or destroy [our relics] will know our wrath, unfettered and raw." That includes you, Raven Beak.
  • Ridley's conspicuous absence in the game makes symbolic sense as well as continuity sense (in that Ridley's genetic material is wiped out by Fusion). Ridley died in Super Metroid along with Mother Brain, and his appearances in Other M and Fusion are just copies of him acting as a ghost to haunt Samus. Once Samus realizes that Ridley is truly gone and the one she encounters is just a clone, Ridley's relevance fades away, with Fusion acting as a whimpering end to the Cunning God of Death as Samus brushes him off as just a corpse and later another X Parasite boss to destroy. This is also why Samus only faces the often-overshadowed Kraid in Dread, because he represents what Samus now thinks of the Space Pirates: Pathetic, pitiful creatures on a leash that are beneath her. But while Ridley and Mother Brain no longer return, the evils they represent still live on in Raven Beak, whose personality is a hybrid of the two.
  • The Chozo-made Storm Missiles having similarities to the Luminoth-made Seeker Missiles is not a coincidence — as detailed back in Echoes, the Luminoth and the Chozo were once friends, and their engineers and craftsmen most likely traded notes.
    • Many fans have also pointed out that Raven Beak uses dark and light arm cannon attacks in his battle, most similar to the Luminoth's Darkburst and Sunburst. His lacking the Annihilation Beam makes sense, too — it was a late-war creation by the Luminoth, made long after they'd gone their separate ways from the Chozo.
  • Why do the Chozo Soldiers use spears instead of arm cannons? During Samus' flashback, the monitor showing the DNA transfer has both Raven Beak and Samus' right arms highlighted in red. This implies that the use of a Chozo arm cannon is somehow related to DNA. Why would it be this way? Chozo arm cannons are so adaptable it's almost scary — just look at how many different weapons and tools Samus and Raven Beak can use! Especially compared to arm cannons from other societies, such as the hunters in Prime Hunters who only really use their Affinity Weapons to their full potential.
  • The X Parasites look more like floating gummy sweets than they do in Metroid Fusion. Since Samus's metroid DNA is manifesting itself more strongly in Dread, there is a chance that she sees the X as a tasty snack.
  • The final confrontation between Samus and Raven Beak-X is a perfect Book Ends capstone for the whole Metroid Myth Arc. The story all began with the rise of the X Parasites, a (probably) Always Chaotic Evil race that was dangerous enough to warrant the Chozo to create the X's natural predator, the Metroids. Samus is the hunter she is today also thanks to the Chozo, and would later become the last Metroid there is. Raven Beak, a malicious Chozo, spent all series trying to contain the X Parasites, before becoming one himself. Not only is Samus now a truly ultimate warrior avenging the Chozo tribe who trained her, but through Raven Beak being infected by an X, the story ends the way it started: the conflict of Metroids vs. Xs. And just as the Thoha Chozo intended, the Metroid wins.
    • As a cherry on top, Kraid is part of Raven Beak-X, meaning that he is both the first and (part of) the final opponent of the Metroid era.
  • While Raven Beak is choking Samus in their first confrontation, Samus actually reaches for him with her left hand. This quick moment subtly shows her Metroid instincts beginning to manifest, as this is just before she awakens them.
  • It's common knowledge that the silhouette of Samus' Fusion Suit helmet resembles a Metroid, and that the three circles on her back symbolize their nuclei. A new addition in Dread is the facemask covering her mouth and nose under her helmet — combined with the sharp bottom of her visor, it's actually reminiscent of a hooked beak, like a Chozo.
  • The Chozo share a gravelly, almost digital-sounding voice. This is likely because real-life birds vocalize using a syrinx instead of a larynx, reflecting the Chozo's avian anatomy.
  • Some out-of-universe Fridge Brilliance: a lot of fans have trouble reconciling the ADAM AI from Fusion with the living human depicted in Other M, with the most extreme opinion being that Other M Adam is a Replacement Scrappy to himself; accordingly, these fans were more likely to be cynically cautious about how he was going to be written in Dread. Additionally, a newcomer to the series is more likely to know about the more contentious elements of how he's written in Other M from pop-cultural osmosis than anything else about him. Because of this out-of-universe reputation, the twist that Raven Beak was impersonating him for most of the game is likely to take longer for these two groups of fans to catch on to. After all, any jerkish out of character behaviour is both less likely to be read as out of character and more likely to be chalked up to bad writing if it is! This leaves the question of how Adam is going to be handled in future games, but for Dread, taking advantage of the out-of-universe snarl surrounding him made the Raven Beak twist that much more impactful.
  • The X Parasites on ZDR seem far more ravenous than their brethren brought onto the BSL from SR388. In Fusion, the X, while still dangerous, didn't infect absolutely everything on the ship all at once. Going to SRX shows live Hornoads jumping in the background, still uninfected by X until one decides they need a host to fight Samus, and the Etecoons and Dachoras are completely ignored by them for being too weak to be worth possessing. The X in Dread, according to "ADAM"/Raven Beak, completely take over the planet and everything on it mere minutes after being released from quarantine. Assuming that's not a lie, why are the X on ZDR much less picky about hosts? Well, the X on SR388 had free reign on the planet and could eat whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. The X on ZDR were kept in quarantine for who knows how long thanks to Raven Beak with only the beings in Elun to eat, which probably ran out quick. The X on ZDR were starving, and Raven Beak just let them out to a planet-sized buffet.
  • ZDR’s sudden destruction after Raven Beak’s death comes out of nowhere, but it does make sense considering Raven Beak’s characterization and ego. It stands to reason that, if the Itorash fell, Raven Beak probably died along with it, so he probably rigged the planet to explode in the event of his death. Either because he does believe in his goal of bringing order to the galaxy enough to understand that the X must be eliminated if he can’t be there to stop them in the event of his death, or because he’s too proud and hateful and just wants to invoke Taking You with Me.
  • Why does the Varia Suit not protect Samus from extreme cold here when it did in Fusion? That Varia was tailor-made by the Federation to compensate for Samus' newfound vulnerability, while this one is a Chozo original built with no such considerations.
  • Throughout the game, you come face-to-face with an indestructible monster dead-set on hunting you down and exterminating you. It's immune to everything you throw at it, and can easily kill you in mere seconds. It's impossible to hide; it can contort its body in strange, inhuman ways you have no hope of matching, letting it slip through small tunnels seemingly tailor-made for infiltrating whatever safe bastion you may think you have. You can avoid its detection for a while by becoming invisible... but even then, if it's already after you, it'll hunt you down and destroy you while you're still invisible. The only way to even have a chance of surviving is to use its own technology against it, and incorporate the tech into your own armour. Now, did I just describe Samus fighting an E.M.M.I.... or the Space Pirates fighting Samus?
  • The practical reason why Raven Beak couldn't pry Samus off as she sucked his energy was... well, how does Samus get Metroids off? Morph Ball and Bombs. Seems like Raven Beak might regret not utilizing those power-ups with his own suit.
    • For that matter, look at the size of his enormous arm cannon. When she's at point blank range, his cannon's bulk means he can't angle a shot properly to hit her. The few shots he does get off go wide.
  • Having choked out Samus after their battle, Raven Beak repeats his proverbial catchphrase, "hadar... sen olmen" or "power is everything". Moments later, Samus takes his words as advice and fully draws on her power (and his) as a Metroid to absolutely wreck his shit.
  • There's something poetic about Samus defeating Raven Beak by exploiting a structural weakpoint in his armor — she's been blowing holes in doors and alloys throughout the entire Metroid series. Speed Booster Blocks? Open with Speed Booster. Raven Beak's helmet? Open with Metroid fury.
    • Imagine if you used the Pulse Radar and Raven Beak's helmet lit up blue.
  • Regarding the names of the two tribes: The more scientific, peaceful tribe is called the Thoha, which (especially given the Chozo's Build Like an Egyptian tendencies) might conjure up Thoth, the birdlike Egyptian god of wisdom, while the tribe that Raven Beak, who mimics Adam throughout Samus' mission, belongs to is called the Mawkin. Mawkin. Mocking. Mockingbirds can mimic other bird calls. Samus, having Chozo DNA, is essentially a bird herself, and Raven Beak was mimicking the "calls" that a "bird" like Samus would respond to in order to carry out his plan. In addition, Thoha is an anagram of 鳩 (hato, Japanese for "pigeon," pigeons being a type of doves, symbols of peace) plus an H, while Mawkin looks and sounds a lot like 猛禽 (mōkin, Japanese for "bird of prey"), reflecting the two tribes' different personalities.
  • The Chozo name for the X seems to be "Eris" (it might be "Eddis", but as we've never seen the word in Chozo writing, we can't say for sure), which is brilliant for two reasons. Number one, Eris was the Greek goddess of discord, which fits perfectly with the chaotic, shapeshifting, dangerous X (plus, it's not only the name of a real dwarf planet, which fits the space theme, but one that was once considered the tenth (Roman numeral X) planet and, in the past, was called Planet X and Xena (after another famous fictional warrior woman much like Samus)). Number two, the game was developed by the Spanish company MercurySteam, and the name sounds similar to "equis", Spanish for the letter X.
  • Kraid's presence after Super Metroid may seem odd at first glance, given Zebes was outright destroyed at the end of that game. Chances are the Mawkin were raiding the last remnants of the space pirates hoping they might have preserved a metroid sample, which presumably failed as those samples either didn't make it off Zebes, ended up in Federation hands, or else the pirates never got the time to set aside DNA samples from their resurrected Metroid breeding program before Samus wiped everything out as usual and only got something of Kraid for their trouble.
  • With theis game's release, comes a genius little detail that ties the MercuryStream Metroids back to Metroid: Zero Mission, even foreshadowing the climax of the game itself. Remember how, to get the Fully Powered Suit, Samus had to pass the Ruins Test in Chozodia? She had to prove herself in combat against a living mural known as the God of War. A mural designed after a valiant Chozo warrior, that looks noticeably different from both Old Bird and Grey Voice, and appears to be a Mawkin. A Chozo deity that attacks with a lightning power that's seemingly more mystical than scientific. An elite Chozo warrior that tests Samus' might in combat, fully ready to kill her if she fails the test, to determine whether she's worthy of its power. A Mawkin using what appears to be a lightning Aeion, considered a god due to its combat power... sound like anyone we know? The Ruins Test is either what Raven Beak sees himself as, or perhaps even an effigy of Raven Beak himself. Samus already surpassed him, right at the very start of her career.
  • It's possible the reason ZDR uses multiple Central Units instead of a single unit like Mother Brain is because they saw the disastrous results of giving an entire planet to one AI on Zebes, and decided to divide the labor to make unruly AI easier to handle.
  • If one uses Sequence Breaking to reach Elun early and free the X, all bosses prior to that point won't show up if you return to their arenas. The out-of-universe explanation for this is that the game thinks you've beaten those bosses already, but even in-universe it still makes sense, as now the X are roaming around and consuming everything.
  • Some might think that calling games set after this one Metroid would be a case of Artifact Title given that there aren't any Metroids around anymore, but just remember two things:
    • First, Samus still has Metroid DNA in her system, making her a Metroid in a sense.
    • Secondly, "Metroid" is the Chozo language word for "ultimate warrior," so even if Samus were to lose said Metroid DNA, whether intentionally or unintentionally, she'd still keep fighting to protect the galaxy (she doesn't seem like the type to want to retire) and thus still be a Metroid in another sense. Either way, the title would still be accurate and everyone who thought Samus's name was Metroid would be somewhat correct.

Fridge Horror

  • Raven Beak wants to use the Metroids to bring order to the galaxy and tries to convince Samus to join him For the Greater Good. He even invokes the Luke, I Am Your Father card on her to sweeten the deal. If this all sounds familiar before, it's because another Metroid villain had said the same thing to Samus years ago: MOTHER BRAIN. Raven Beak is essentially Mother Brain as a powerful Chozo.
    • Raven Beak may be a perverse relic of a bygone era by the time Dread happens, but his behavior gives a glimpse of the kind of place the Galaxy was before the Chozo wised up in their twilight years: imagine a galaxy when the Chozo were at their peak and still very warlike: if fighting Raven Beak one on one was such a harrowing experience for Samus, who had a similar power armor and years of training and experience using it under her belt, imagine what it felt like to less advanced or less militarized civilizations who had the bad luck to catch the Chozo's attention when there were perhaps billions of Chozo warriors with the means and disposition to treat the galaxy as their playground.
    • This has other interesting implications as well. The cutscene before the final boss reveals Raven Beak lived for a time on Zebes when Samus was growing up. Where exactly did an AI like Mother Brain get her destructive ideals from? Who wants to bet Raven Beak spent time programming her to be like that... or perhaps even worse, simply influencing her into that mindset with words alone.
    • Raven's brutal disposition, his association with the colors purple and red, disregard for his own men, and his growing wings in the second phase harken heavily to the cunning god of death himself. Raven Beak is more or less a twisted combination of the Chozo, a race Samus loves and was raised by; and Ridley, the one creature she despises the most for destroying her childhood.
    • In Ferenia region, there are murals depicting the Mawkin tribe fighting/subjugating the Space Pirates with a little Mother Brain image next to the Mawkin. This implies that the Mawkin had a run-in with the Space Pirates long ago. But what is Mother Brain doing in the mural? And did she get the idea of controlling the Space Pirates from the Mawkin?
    • Related to the above, one of the reasons why the Space Pirates successfully conquered Zebes in the manga was due to their mini black hole weapon bypassing the planetary defenses, a technology so advanced that Old Bird wondered how they got it in the first place. And guess who has a mini black hole weapon in his boss fight? Likewise, shortly after the invasion of Zebes, Old Bird revealed to Samus that the Metroid project had failed, implying that the events of SR388 were happening simultaneously. This leads to a terrifying question: Did Raven Beak supply the Space Pirates with weapons to invade Zebes to eliminate any potential Chozo opposition as he made his bid for the Metroids?
  • The Mawkin laboratory in Hanubia implies that every organism on ZDR was created (or otherwise experimented on) by the tribe to create bioweapons. Was there ever any life on ZDR to begin with? If so, how badly did they ruin the planet's ecosystem?
    • Corpius can be seen getting captured in a Chozo Archive, so there were some native species. But it's pretty messed up that they'd experiment on an entire planet of innocent wildlife.
  • The Chozo Archives show that Raven Beak would feed uncooperative Chozo to some sort of sea monster, possibly Drogyga. Imagine being in a society where, if you refused to go along with your dictator's insane plot for power, you were ceremonially executed to ensure only the strong and loyal survive.
    • And then imagine being in this society when it gets an X epidemic. Since they had no cure, the Mawkin were forced to just quarantine their infected brethren within Elun (which seems like it wasn't originally made as a quarantine bay, judging by the architecture). Oh, and by "infected brethren", that eventually meant literally everyone. Only those who could retain their loyalty, such as some of the Chozo Soldiers, were allowed freedom. The end result? All Mawkin were either mindless X zombies or destructive killing machines loyal to Raven Beak — no in betweens.
  • Kraid has had a rough go of it. After getting wrecked by Samus on Zebes (twice), he somehow got captured by the Mawkin Chozo. They strung him up in harsh restraints and left him with painful sores and infections on his belly. Then he got killed by Samus (again), only for his remains to be absorbed by an X and desecrated as part of some terrible abomination (killed again by Samus, by this point it may as well have been a Mercy Kill). And since we've never seen Kraid massacre a colony of innocents like Ridley, it's a lot easier to feel sympathy for the big guy.
  • Kraid's presence on ZDR puts a chilling spin on Super Metroid. Because Zebes was destroyed, the only way Kraid could be on ZDR is that Raven Beak and the Mawkin were on Zebes and looking for the Baby just like Samus. Kraid wasn't even the objective, just something the Mawkin took with them when they failed to recover the Baby before Mother Brain killed it.
    • A more likely explanation, assuming Raven Beak was not present on Zebes at the time (which I don't recall there being any canon indication of?): Raven Beak got his hands on Kraid's DNA the same way the Federation got ahold of Ridely's DNA. The GF most certainly didn't seem to have any opportunity to get their hands on Ridely's corpse before Zebes was completely destroyed. But consider that Super Metroid marked Ridley's second renaimation in-series, with Kraid getting one as well. They most likely had DNA samples that could have made it off Zebes before its destruction, or might have been stored in some other space pirate facility entirely. After their latest plans fell apart yet again, the most likely answer is Ridley's preserved DNA fell into the Federation's hands, while Raven Beak ended up with Kraid's genetic backup. Given how unlikely it is that Raven Beak was actually tooling around on Zebes at exactly the right time to pick up Kraid's remains, completely fail to get even one scrap of Metroid DNA, then escape without either blowing up with the planet or being discovered, more likely Raven Beak went after space pirate remhants at some point after learning they'd attempted to resurrect a metroid breeding program, failed to find any samples of metroid DNA that made it off Zebes (if they'd even made it that far into the metroid breeding program), and ended up finding Kraid's DNA to tinker with instead.
  • The Mawkin are known to experiment on lifeforms as they did with Experiment Z-57. Who's to say that they're not also the ones who put Kraid's infection there as an experiment?
  • Quiet Robe's X copy turning out to be benevolent and helping saving Samus at the end isn't the fridge horror part. Remember that the Thoha tribe created the Metroids to drive the X to extinction, which in turn caused the entire rest of the franchise, and then realize that for all of their fears, paranoia, and the Godzilla Threshold they crossed to ensure the safety of the galaxy. The very existence of a benevolent X Parasite flies in the face of everything they and anyone else knows of the species, which could very well mean that had more research been done into the X to figure out how to trigger this on a wider scale, the central conflict that haunts the series and shaped all of Samus's life from the first game onwards could've never had to happen.
  • The penultimate boss of the game is Raven Beak’s right-hand-man, an Elite Chozo Soldier in golden armor, who midway through the boss fight is revealed to be another X-infected host. On its own, this may not seem much, until you realize that the Chozo-X is guarding the entrance to the transport pod leading to Raven Beak’s ship, which would seem odd given how careful Raven Beak has been in order to avoid infection...Unless he has somehow discovered a means to tame and control at least some of the X Parasites that have infected his Mawkin brethren into serving as his most elite soldiers. This is even hinted in one of the unlockable images shown in the art gallery which depicts Raven Beak and a group of Mawkin Chozo standing ominously as one of their own is being infected by an X Parasite. While the other Mawkin are clearly horrified at what is happening to their fellow warrior, Raven Beak looks to be calmly observing the infected Chozo as if he has found yet another weapon that he can use for his army.
    • This may factor into why Quiet Robe's X helped Samus escape ZDR too. Maybe an especially strong loyalty or desire can overpower the X's natural will to consume. Of course, this questions the very nature of X Parasites, making one wonder about every creature on the BSL; maybe the SA-X's tireless hunt for Samus was merely a corruption of her already thorough desire to seek and destroy.
    • Samus' battle with the Elite Chozo Soldier is also a sneak peek at Raven Beak's plan — he's pitting his two ultimate warriors against each other to see who is worthy of being called his right-hand-man.
  • What exactly triggered the self-destruct after Raven Beak's defeat. In all likelihood, it was ADAM. ADAM states very casually after the X get loose that they'll need to destroy the entire planet to keep them contained, but that it can't be done until Samus has dealt with Raven Beak and gotten to her ship. The moment that Samus defeats the X-possessed Raven Beak, a countdown starts; more than likely, that was ADAM. But why didn't he warn Samus first? Because he couldn't; the entire reason Samus kept needing to link with the terminals to speak with him was because their communications were cut. He just had to start the countdown and trust that Samus would make it to the ship.
  • Why does ADAM already know what Samus's Metroid Suit is capable of the moment that she reaches the ship? Because by the time she reached it, their connection was reestablished and he'd already downloaded the data himself. However, if he knew Quiet Robe was on the ship, it's possible the two of them discussed what needed to be done to save Samus.
  • Samus's Hyper Beam in the Metroid Suit is obscenely overpowered, seemingly due to draining Raven Beak and his ship simultaneously given how similar it is to his own beam cannon attacks. But then, the last time Samus got the Hyper Beam was from the Heroic Sacrifice of the Baby Metroid in its overgrown state — which implies that Metroids simply have this amount of life energy power in the first place naturally. And if that's the case, the universe is lucky the Chozo designed them to absorb rather than exert, or else they'd be destroying everything like Samus could.
    • It also raises the question just how much of Metroid Prime and Dark Samus's obscene power was inherent Metroid energies and how much of it was the Phazon exposure.
    • Falls into Fridge Brilliance when you remember the Omega Metroids and Metroid Queen on SR388 and how they fired energy beams at Samus. Sure, they weren't as destructive as the Hyper Beam was, but the fact that they could fire a beam at all should tell you something.
  • With Dread featuring a return of both the X parasites and Aeion, there seems to a connection between the two, seeing as Samus Returns indicates Aeion was first discovered on SR388. Question is, did one cause the other? Unless we get a remake of Fusion with Aeion mechanics added to it, currently the presence of X in an environment does not lead to the presence of Aeion, leaving open the possibility that the X evolved due to an Aeion-rich environment. Assuming Raven Beak didn't simply bring samples from SR388, then ZDR's X infestation would be from convergent evolution. If there are ANY other Chozo outposts using Aeion technology, they could all be ticking time bombs at risk of developing a fresh X infestation.
  • When the Galactic Federation finds out the X might not be extinct, they send out robots with DNA extracting technology. Considering that both Fusion and Other M made the existence of a powerful pro-bioweapons conspiracy in the Federation clear, it’s likely that the EMMI’s mission wasn’t just investigation, but also appropriation of the X. After seeing what a disaster trying to control the X was in Fusion, Raven Beak taking control of the EMMI might have actually saved the galaxy in the long run.
    • Alternatively, the GF, upon discovering that the X still existed, wanted to find an alternative countermeasure against the X that did not involve Samus Aran, in case something happened to her. Given how their research efforts went so badly awry in Fusion, it's probably for the best that they weren't allowed to try.
  • The fact that the Storm Missiles and Raven Beak's Black Hole and Sun creating attacks resemble the Seeker Missiles, the Darkburst, and the Sunburst attacks from Echoes, carries the unfortunate implication that the Luminoth specifically met the Mawkin when they met the Chozo. Or at the very least, the Mawkin were the only ones to truly take any of the technological ideas from the Luminoth, as we haven't seen this among Chozo technology at all before now.
    • On the other hand, if this is true, this seems to have worked out for the best, as Mawkin weapons almost certainly would have helped the Luminoth survive their 50 year long war against the Ing.
  • Samus can drain things by touching them now, and even touching her ship's control scheme without the right suit risks draining it dry. Is Samus unable to touch anything now without protective equipment?
    • The infusion of Quiet Robe's genes from the QRX stabilized her so she won't need anything like that. Though we are left with the question of what Samus could do if she loses control again.
  • When Samus enters Hanubia, you can see some Chozo fighter craft in the background, abandoned due to the X infestation. During the escape sequence, they're gone. While there's the possibility that the destruction of the Itorash knocked them down, the buildings they were docked to are completely pristine and show no external damage from any of the Itorash's debris field.
  • It seems strange that the E.M.M.I. each come with an ability for Samus to absorb — each one even has the initials of an ability in their designations. We already saw in Fusion that the GF is capable of replicating Samus's power-ups, so it seems that they tried working them into the Exelion Star Corporation's newest project too. Not only that, but the GF's response upon rediscovering the X was to send E.M.M.I.s rather than immediately call the one woman in the galaxy immune to them. Overall, it seems that the GF is exploring ways to replace Samus with machines that they can control.
    • Which makes sense, both for evil and not-evil reasons. Samus has shown herself to be one of the best ways to take down the forces of evil — X Parasites, Space Pirates, Phazon, evil Chozo, and so on. However, as good as she is, she's only one woman. She can't be everywhere at once, and if something were to happen to her — like when she got infected back in Fusion — they'd be royally screwed. Having a way to fight back against the darkness of the universe makes sense. Further, Chozo technology is some of the most advanced tech in the universe, and wanting a slice of that pie is something very understandable. What they might want with these technologies is where this can verge into the Fridge Horror category, but not necessarily.
  • Once Raven Beak releases the X Parasites from Elun, it's a matter of moments before every lifeform on the planet is consumed and copied by the X. Samus couldn't have been in Elun for more than an hour, meaning the speed at which X can overtake an entire planet is staggering. Even more impressive, however, may be the Mawkin's ability to quarantine them in the first place. Just how powerful and coordinated were the Mawkin in their prime?
  • If the player sequence breaks past Kraid, they can progress all the way until the X outbreak and further. Returning to Kraid's lair in Cataris, his roars can still be heard in the rooms preceding his chamber... but upon entering his room, he's already gone. This time, those roars weren't just him having a tantrum, they were him unsuccessfully fighting off the X!
  • If Ridley hadn't kidnapped the Baby Metroid, Raven Beak would have and Samus wouldn't have survived the rescue attempt.
  • A single Chozo Warrior is powerful enough to be a miniboss. Imagine how terrifying the Chozo army was in its prime, when there were thousands or potentially even millions of them.

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