Sometimes, you stumble across a piece of media that feels like it was plucked directly from the lore of your favourite roleplaying game. Today, that media is the stunning animated music video for the track “The Phoenix” by Argentinian rockers SIAMÉS, and the RPG is the excellent Defiant by Game Machinery.
In Defiant, the apocalypse came, and powerful supernatural beings (angels, demons, and ancient gods) were expected to tear down the world. Instead, they chose to protect their corner of it, becoming its flawed but determined rulers. The game is about holding onto power, protecting your people, and dealing with the political and personal fallout. But what happened before? What could drive a host of angels to defy their orders? The SIAMÉS video offers a powerful, tragic, and ultimately revolutionary answer. It feels less like a direct adaptation and more like a prequel – a look at the apocalyptic failure that forged the Defiant.
The video opens on a world already lost. We see a stark, crumbling, brutalist cityscape, a visual allegory for a failed society. This isn’t the world the Defiant saved; this is the world they didn’t. The narrative is steeped in regret, following winged beings who wander the ruins of a city they were perhaps meant to unmake, but now seem to mourn. The recurring motif of an hourglass and the pointed lyrics, “I made mistakes, I learned my lesson,” speak to a profound sense of failure. This is the origin story of the Defiant cause, born not from a triumphant stand, but from the ashes of a catastrophic error in judgment. They let their city fall, and now they are living with the ghosts.
This shared trauma becomes the catalyst for a supernatural revolution. The video’s protagonist doesn’t just wander sadly; they fight. They clash with other winged figures, beings who perhaps represent the old, destructive order – those who followed their apocalyptic instructions without question. This conflict is the schism, the moment the would-be Defiant turn on their own kind. It’s a civil war fought in the ruins of their failure. The song’s powerful theme of rebirth – of leaving an old self behind – is recontextualised as a political and philosophical transformation. These angels are shedding their old purpose and, in a moment of supreme irony, finding their own form of salvation by defying their creators.
The video culminates not just in a personal rebirth, but in the birth of the Defiant pact. The transformation from a grey, dead world to one of vibrant, flourishing life is the fruit of their revolution. It’s the world they have reclaimed and now vow to protect, a promise forged in the fires of their initial failure. The final shot, of the hourglass resting in a field of flowers, symbolises their new purpose: to guard what remains and to nurture life. Seen through this lens, the SIAMÉS video is a heartbreaking and inspiring Session Zero for a Defiant chronicle, showing the tragic loss that had to happen before these fallen angels could choose to stand their ground.
Or, alternatively, it’s Sunday night, and I’m justifying watching music on YouTube as research for Geek Native and stretching this further than I should.
