Zoh Shia, Fatalis, and Safi analysis/rant

Writer note:

Just some stuff I had a weird amount of free time to type about after college classes feel free to ask questions or dogpile me if this thought process is absolute stinking garbage or give valid critique on my first theory post. At the end of the day this is for fun & just concepts I’m throwing at a wall to see what sticks. Keep in mind I haven’t read other MHWILDS theories aside from Zoh Shia being a genetically engineered attempt at a Fatalis, so if anyone has smthn posted similar to mine it’s complete coincidence, I just got fatass leaks flash banged from the past week into my brain off TikTok , YouTube & Twitter so here we go 💔

Excuse my handwriting on images 9 & 10 my apparent deal with the autism devil was art and not handwriting.

Real sexy theoretical thoughts time:

(First image) A year ago I shared with a friend a random message about Fatalis perhaps being the “Lucifer” or “Satan” of the elders—not like the others that share qualities of the ecosystems or controlling elements and natural disasters but instead This is a creature of pure hatred and malice against humanity’s ancestors of the game as a whole for a reason that, so far, was fanon for a long time with the existence of an Equal Dragon Weapon being a catalyst for this “wiping out majority of humanity in a dragon war” theory. With wilds now out there is further confirmation of an ancient civilization (ignoring wyverians, troverians, Sea People, etc.) that tampered with dna — obviously Equal Dragon Weapon has been retconned after being a non-canon concept for a long time for the fandom and fanfic writers to go crazy about— but the concept is now revived in its own way.

I know there’s the theory of Zoh being an attempt at remaking a Fatalis or black dragon by pulling its dna out, but maybe we are looking at it too simple with it being the only carbon copy attempt made by one civilization through survivorship bias glasses—is it ever specified if there’s just one civilization or multiple? after all there are entire continents that perhaps would’ve rivaled one another with their advanced technology, perhaps some even hated each other. Who’s to say this ancient civilization was unified? Perhaps there were more that were completely wiped by the only civilization with ruins and pieces of the past we can see.

But hear me out, maybe Fatalis itself IS an “equal dragon weapon”—or comes from a line of them. why else would it be designed without ecological function aside from destruction? Just like the ancient civilization, We humans irl have advanced to a point where we do not have an ecological function anymore aside from taking from nature, destruction, and killing one another, so of course we’d make something like that too (or alter ourselves to be better if we consider the theory of the hunters being descendants of genetically engineered soldiers? Anyone remember seeing that or just me?) —a weapon designed to kill humans and to protect us & that obviously is going to fuck us over with something that just so happens to be of equal sentience woohoo. Ever read I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream? Frankenstein? Or Paradise Lost?

Anyway, we learn that Zoh Shia may or may not be responsible for the end of the ancient civilization (or multiple if we consider survivorship bias with the leftover knowledge of this specific civilization) —the same thing the fandom had theorized Fatalis actually being the cause of. And what we do know is the legend of Fatalis being able to heal or “reincarnate” from single scales off of its armor humans wear, that of which, scales in real life contain DNA…DNA that is enough to be used in VARIOUS genetic studies. The ancient civilization played god and basically created more advanced guardians like Fatalis, or Lucifer, the angel that becomes a demon. In Paradise Lost Lucifer rebels against his creator & becomes Satan & fights archangel Michael within the process of days yadda yadda if you know you know I’ll get back to this later. Zoh Shia shares movesets with Fatalis and even gains some of its features like horns randomly sprouting, same spikes emerging on its long tail, and even subtle changes in physiology like it starting to stand more upright on its hind-legs the same way Fatalis does to mock humans. Fatalis is undoubtedly of extreme intelligence equal to humans, as with the lore a mocking mankind & melting defeated hunters down to make its own armor to mock us.

Now one thing we do know about Fatalis is that it is based on ancient medieval dragons, dragons associated as Satan or Lucifer rivaling humanity as a whole (image 2). (Images 6-8) Something I did notice is that these depictions of these “sleek” “winged serpentine” dragons have is a snout that ends with a beak. Zoh Shia carries more bird-like beak after its quills/angelic aspects start to disappear (last image). Fatalis’ snout ends with a vaguely beak-like curve to it as well, although very subtle, I still consider it a vague resemblance or callback to these depictions of dragons with a beak (image 11).

I have seen plenty of theories on safi-Fatalis relations with majority of them being rivals, If we consider Fatalis may be the Equal Dragon Weapon or from a line of equal dragon weapons, then maybe nature had its own way of making a weapon too: Safi’Jiiva.

But Safi, just like Fatalis, is akin to resembling an evil storybook dragon—but the difference is its ecological focus is being able to drain or redistribute Bioenergy, and is directly formed by it too. Zoh Shia is described as “parasitic monster that hibernated & siphoning a massive pool of energy during its sleep.” Sounds a bit like something’s Xeno-Safi’Jiiva has been cooking up to as well in World. So maybe Safi and Fatalis have a similar goal instead of being rivals?

Now that we are aware Safi and Fatalis are based more so off European tales of dragons, perhaps I shall bring you to one that caught my eye. On image 3, there’s a story of a red and a white dragon that could be another parallelism to safi-Fatalis, or Safi & Zoh Shia or White Fatalis. If we consider Fatalis actually originate from these “equal dragon weapons” , maybe it constantly evolves to counter anything that could exceed its power?

Anyway more onto Safi— we know safi is the sapphire star dragon that the legend of the 5 dragons alludes to in MHWorld/Iceborne, but this one part of the story in image 4 had me thinking real bad about more western or biblical connections that Fatalis may have— the connection to the dragons swimming away, and onto image 5 with four beasts in the Bible rising up from the sea. In images 9-10 I scribbled thoughts over the icons for World/Iceborne and Wilds feel free to read them if you can. These four dragons, four “apostles” as I like to call them seem to have this “sapphire star” and its beholder, Safi’Jiiva, always centered—and with Wild’s icon, perhaps this black dragon is a former apostle— or something symbiotically closer, or simply a rival? Perhaps it’s Fatalis? Or perhaps it’s whatever Zoh Shia finally turns into if we put my thoughts away for now.

Anyway yeah just random thoughts & theories no need to take super seriously , but if you do I’d like to hear your thoughts or critiques.