Author: Trafficblast

Red explains this pretty ambiguously during a monologue, so here’s our best theory as to just what she meant. The Tethered were an abandoned cloning project that, apparently, first figured out how to clone animals before moving on to humans. The project was successful in re-creating a human body, but it couldn’t duplicate a human “soul,” meaning the Tethered were, essentially, bound to the people they were copied from.

Of course, this is where we have to accept that Us is not only a horror thriller, it’s also a sci-fi story. The first real life clone of a mammal was Dolly the sheep back in 1996, but we know that whatever project birthed the Tethered had to have been both established and completely abandoned before 1986–meaning it probably went back as far as a conflict like Vietnam, to give us some idea of just how many generations of Tethered have been living underground, and for how long.

Interestingly, there seems to be some amount of variation between just how linked the Tethered are to their doubles. Pluto seems to copy all of Jason’s movements, even when those movements are potentially fatal to him, but other Tethered seem considerably more independent. This could be because Pluto and Jason are the youngest set of doubles in the bunch–maybe the link lessens over time. Or maybe Pluto and Jason are just special.

Sekiro’s combat is all about breaking an enemy’s posture, which is the gauge below their health bar. You’re trying to max it out in order to dismantle their defense and inflict a death blow. While sword attacks help with the general effort, it’s ultimately your ability to deflect their attacks that does the most damage to posture.

A deflection is performed by timing a guard right at the moment an enemy’s attack makes contact. As you can imagine, this takes a bit of practice to master. Luckily, there’s a fella named Hanebi–an undead samurai who hangs out at the Dilapidated Temple–who you can practice deflection against without having to worry about dying. This is a nice way to practice the game’s combat mechanics, as well as get a feel for any new attacks or techniques you unlock from the many skill trees, such as the Whirlwind Slash or the Mikiri Counter.

However, the best way to train is to find an area near a Sculptor’s Idol filled with varying enemy types and just work from there. Hanebi is a decent foe to test your deflection skills against, but it’s in practical situations where you can gather the most valuable knowledge and insight about your strengths and weaknesses in not only deflection, but in a general fight. In addition, practicing deflection against varying groups of enemies and larger, more intimidating foes is essential as you’re often thrown into dire situations with them during the game’s more challenging areas.