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In the video game Shadow of the Colossus (created by sony in 2005) the main character "wanderer" takes his lover to a distant land and asks a demon to help revive his lover. The demon says that he will help you if you can kill all sixteen colossi in the land. The wanderer has a magical sword that can kill the colossi by stabbing and revealing their weak points. So this raises my question Where Did the colossi come from?

(Note: the demon has part of him sealed in each colossi so when you kill one part of him possesses you (wanderer))

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    Unfortunetly, we have no confirmed idea. Maybe they were created when the Demon was sealed, maybe they volunteered, maye they were forced. Given that they turn into rocks and dirt after death indicates they are magical golems rather than already living creatures, so my money is on "created as walking, self-defending seals".
    – Petersaber
    Commented Jun 10, 2016 at 16:40
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    Pretty sure the creator(s) will never say, or possibly never conceived an answer. Minimalist storytelling is one of Team Ico's calling cards. Personally I like Petersaber's comment, but opinion is opinion.
    – Radhil
    Commented Jun 10, 2016 at 17:38

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There really isn't an awful lot to go on. One of the conceits behind Shadow of the Colossus is that the "forbidden lands" have remained off limits for long enough that whoever did the forbidding in the first place (and their reasons for doing so) have been lost in the mists of history.

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Shadow of the Colossus - PS2 Manual

In the opening, Lord Emon mentions something about a person who had the ability to creating beings from light (note that the massive icons in the Temple that represent the Colossi explode into light when their respective Colossi are destroyed) suggesting that the Colossi themselves are constructed magically. Beyond that we really don't know very much more.

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  • Why not link to the LORE episode on YouTube? They tend to research about a game and get the back story.
    – CBredlow
    Commented Jun 10, 2016 at 18:55
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    @CBredlow - I did consider it (youtube.com/watch?v=Uci5OeCgaR4) but my issue is that they state fan-fic as fact, for example that Dormin was vanquished and his power hidden inside the Colossi. While that's an interesting theory, I'm struggling to see how it's backed up in any part of the actual game or its associated materials.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 10, 2016 at 19:05
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There are some clues in the game that make it highly probable that the colossi were created by the predecessors of the priest Emon who is following the hero to the Forbidden Land. The hero and the priest both have a symbol on their clothes that matches the sigils on the colossi that you have to stab with the sword, so the sigils and therefore the colossi appear to have been created by priests in the past.

The priest also says that the hero has stolen the sword that can destroy the colossi, so it was probably kept in the temple to protect it from being used. The hero seems to have been a guard or novice of the temple and so knew that the sword was needed to free Dormin by destroying the colossi.

I think at the end Dormin even says to the priest "You have severed our body into sixteen pieces to seal away our power". This probably referrs to previous priests in the past and not to Emon specifically.

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