In Palutena's Revolting Dinner, it seems silly that Pit would actually believe that eating hamburgers would turn him into one, until you remember the Eggplant Wizard and the Tempura Wizard.
In the same short, Palutena saying that Pit eats too many hamburgers, doughnuts, and cake may just seem like another joke at Pit's expense, until you remember that many players grab food whenever it's possible, meaning that Pit actually eats everything edible that's collected on a mission.
There are a total of 25 chapters in this game, the same number of years in between the original Kid Icarus and Kid Icarus Uprising. Genius!
In the levels, Palutena can create grind rails for Pit to hop on and grind his way through obstacles he can't pass normally. One wonders why Viridi can't do the same thing. She can, but in Chapter 14, Phosphora mentions that the Forces of Nature don't have the budget. The truth is that, more than likely, Viridi has actually never made grind rails before...which probably explains why the rails randomly cut off during the moments when she's helping Pit.
During Chapter 9, while Pit is running through Medusa's recreation of Chapter 3, Pit questions if these locations are real, and Medusa responds by saying that they're "as real as [she is]". Then you find out that she's a fake...
It's no secret that practically everyone in Kid Icarus Uprising breaks the fourth wall every once in a while. Except not. Look back on the dialogue, and you'll notice that Magnus never breaks the fourth wall once in any of his segments. That means the only people that break the fourth wall are the gods or anyone associated closely with the gods. It makes sense if you think about it. Gods are, in theory, omniscient, so they would know they're part of another medium if that was the case.
The names of the Zodiac items seem random at first, but a lot of them make a lot of sense if you think about it. Like the Gemini Orbitars - Gemini is The Twins, of course they'll have two weapons. Also, the Sagittarius Bow - Sagittarius is The Archer. Cancer is The Crab, so the Cancer Claws are giant crab claws. The Leo Cannon deals fire damage; the relevant Zodiac sign is associated with the Sun. Similarly, the Scorpio Staff deals poison damage, appropriate for a scorpion. The Libra Sponge ability increases your own attack power when you take damage, "balancing the scales" so to speak, and Aries Armor prevents knockback and status effects, allowing you to charge into battle (both ram-like, and showing the impulsiveness associated with Aries).
Not to mention: Where do you find the Gemini Orbitars? Chapter Six. The level where Pit fights his Evil Twin.
Not only that, but what are the Gemini Orbitars shaped like? The theatrical masks of Comedy and Tragedy, respectively representing the lighthearted and generally upbeat Pit with comedy, and the melancholy, doom-and-gloom Dark Pit with tragedy.
The Hot Spring in Arlon's Lunar Sanctum is shaped like a crescent moon.
When you think about it, there's a pretty ironic joke in casting Troy Baker as both Arlon and Pyrrhon. Although it isn't explicitly stated, Arlon's location and powers suggest that he may be the God of the Moon, complementing Pyrrhon role as God of the Sun. Additionally, the two characters are complete opposites: Arlon never loses his composure, while Pyrrhon is always hamming it up.
For further contrast, they both have different roles. Arlon first appears as a villain but later proves to not be evil since he's just preventing the Chaos Kin from escaping. Meanwhile, Pyrrhon first appears as an ally, but is later revealed to be a villain, since he wanted to take control of the Aurum.
The writers were really clever with Arlon. In addition to that bit of irony, there's also the Lunar Sanctum's introduction. Think about it: the "normal" moon's goddess is Selene. Arlon is "the Serene". When we see both moons, the normal one is on the "left" and the Lunar Sanctum is on the "right".
In Chapter 15, when the Aurum first appear, Pyrrhon quotes the Book of Divine Prophecy, and Viridi notes complete unfamiliarity with that chapter. Phosphora notes in a throwaway line near the end of the flight segment of chapter 14 that Viridi is an expert diviner, so a prophecy that she isn't familiar with may not be so trustworthy. Sure enough, it turns out that Pyrrhon was trying to gain the power of the Aurum for himself.
In Chapter 7, Palutena asks Thanatos why he doesn't outrank Medusa since he's the God of Death, and he tries to dodge the question. Thanatos is later revived by Hades, who mentions that Thanatos gets special treatment as the God of Death. Thanatos was working for Hades all along, and actually does outrank Medusa. He dodged the question to keep it a secret.
This also explains why you don't fight him in Chapter 9, but you do fight the rest of the Underworld commanders you previously defeated, as it was Medusa who made these copies.
In Chapter 22 Pandora becoming Amazon Pandora seems to come out of nowhere, but when you remember Greek Mythology, you realize that Amazon Pandora's beauty comes from Pandora's box. Pandora was created by the Gods to be the most beautiful woman for mankind to feast their eyes on. She was to be perfect in every way but the one thing they didn't give her was resistance to the unknown. One of her attacks is opening the boxes to attack Dark Pit which is supposed to represent Pandora in Greek Mythology opening Pandora's box. Upon defeat Dark Pit is able to revive Pit because of the spring. Now what was the one thing that Pandora kept in the box before it flew away? Hope. What does Pit represent? Hope. In other words, Amazon Pandora was trying to prevent Dark Pit from getting to hope and upon being defeated, she released hope.
The game manages to implement a reference to the actual myth of Icarus in the title by having Pit's wings burn up after he flies for too long.
Not to mention the reason he started falling in Chapter 17 was because he flew too close to Pyrrhon, the SUN God.
In chapter 18, Pit says he can't read. Then in chapter 24, Dyntos asks Pit "Do you remember the name of this chapter?" to which he replies "The one trial" instead of the three. Although it's probably because he was just trying to bypass the other two trials, it's possible he actually didn't know what the chapter was called.
Arlon seems out of place in the Forces of Nature since he appears to represent the moon instead of anything on Earth. However, if you believe in the giant impact hypothesis, then Arlon being a member of the Forces of Nature suddenly makes more sense because, technically, he's a part of the Earth.
In chapter 5, Pandora has a series of moving platforms that spells her name inside her labyrinth. Despite the player being clearly able to read, Pit still asks Palutena to decode it. Turns out Pit can't read.
Amazon Pandora's idol description says that "a blunder cost the goddess her body, forcing Pandora to take the form of a pure manifestation of her will," transforming her into that blue, fiery form we all know. Who else has a blue, fiery form? The Chariot Master, whose idol states that "His body may be ruined, but by walking the soldier's path in death, the master's soul still burns.
Dark Pit sure likes his flying kick move. Makes sense; he was born doing it.
The Chaos Kin's Leitmotif sounds similar to the themes of Chapter 14. It could be Foreshadowing, considering the Chaos Kin escaped in the previous chapter.
In Chapter 9, Medusa says she'll remove Pit's wings and sever him from the heavens forever, explaining why Palutena can't just heal Pit's wings in Chapter 21 when they burn up despite all the powers she's displayed before.
An alternate view of Chapter 21 is crisis mode. Pit enters it when his health is depleted, signifying anymore damage to his body will likely finish him. After a while, crisis mode wears off and Pit is left with an almost empty health bar, the difference being an almost empty health bar can be filled with healing powers, food items or time in a hot spring while no health recovery methods take affect in crisis mode until it ends. Overusing the power of flight put Pit into a crisis which won't wear off, making healing useless, but he's not dead yet so revival is equally useless. There is a crisis recovery power, but that only speeds up what was going to happen on its own. Waiting for Pit to die might be a valid option if he wasn't a valuable asset in the war against the underworld, and Palutena might not like the idea of his prolonged suffering besides.
Some more Fridge Brilliance\Fridge Horror relating to Pit's inability to fly: It's stated several times that all of Palutena's Centurions are incompetent and have nothing going for them other than their loyalty and the fact that they're regularly brought back. Meanwhile, Pit is so competent at what he does that he defeats entire armies with almost no assistance aside from Palutena's blessing of flight, and the healing and support items she leaves for him. And yet he's the only angel serving her who can't fly without her permission? It doesn't make any sense until you consider the idea that Dark Pit is a true reflection of the darkness in Pit's heart. Dark Pit is only loyal to someone if they can provide him with something that he wants or needs. Even though Pit is loyal to a fault, she may believe that his loyalty only comes from the fact that he needs her favor in order to fly (something that may be hinted at with her disapproving comments whenever he remarks that it would be nice to be able to fly without having to rely on her), and that if he were to gain the ability to fly on his own he'll leave as soon as something displeases him. Really, she could be deliberately denying him the same kind of proper flight that the Centurions have just so that she can have a fiercely loyal and skilled servant who can't afford to leave her service even after all of the abuse she puts him through. If this is the case, her emotions over Pit's wings burning up from overusing the power of flight in order to save Dark Pit would also be guilt over the fact that Pit died because she refused to give him that power.
Why would Hades' belly have Underworld forces inside it, even if they are cellular? Well, Chapter 22 reveals that not only are Underworld forces made of souls, but also that Hades regularly eats souls like they were bacon...
Pit and Magnus have noticeable differences in combat, even when using the same weapon. This seems strange until you read Magnus's idol text, which describes him as a swordsman. Treating his weapon like a sword, Magnus is most concerned with its sharp edge. When swinging at a target Magnus is trying to strike in a specific manner while Pit is simply swinging as hard as possible because to him it is a club. Pit thus follows through more and doesn't swing as many times. Conversely, Magnus doesn't perform as many continuous swings as Pit when Pit is deliberately trying to for the same reason; Pit is showing complete disregard as to whether sharp or blunt connect with anything. Why do the boots slow Magnus down so much when he can so easily jump in them? They don't, Magnus runs slower because he's taking care not to cut himself.Why does Pit behave more like Magnus in "The Ring Of Chaos"? For the same reason he takes on urges of a dog.
The New Testament describes a pool that has healing powers, but only while an angel is stirring it up. When the nature goddess mocks Pit's love of hot springs, it's because she has no angels of her own and only knows them by definition one. She likely never saw, much less felt this recovery method of theirs. Magnus doesn't benefit from hot springs unless Pit is around.
The power of flight doesn't just let Pit fly, it also significantly increases several attributes of him and the weapon he happens to be armed with. While receiving less hearts from enemies while using it likely just game balance, there is an story line justification for the power boost. All of Pit's weapons are replicas created by Dyntos and infused with the power of the gods. Some of these replicas(pretty much anything with a value greater than 100) are superior to the original and grant bonuses such as longer effective range of power, an increase in Pit's stamina, etc. The power of flight is a continuous rush of a goddess's power directly into Pit, which supercharges Pit's already god power infused weapon as a side effect.This is also why the final shot is so powerful. It's a piece of an already powerful weapon, powered by one goddess while Pit gets the usual power of flight boost from another.
The final battle with The Chaos Kin doesn't start until Pit has worn it down by destroying wave after wave of enemies is has summoned to keep him at bay. Now in the first Kid Icarus, the battle with Medusa didn't start until Pit defeated enough enemies to make her appear. That wasn't just level design. In Kid Icarus Uprising, Medusa tries to hold back Pit but he is able to get close enough to hit her despite it. That's what Palutena meant by Medusa's life force being weaker, she couldn't hide behind waves of enemies the second time around as she once could and The Chaos Kin still could.
For a high rank goddess Palutena is surprisingly quite a Glass Cannon when you fight her as a boss, to the extent that killing her by accident is a real risk. But if one is paying close attention in the cut scene that precedes the fight, she enters the room literally staggering, supporting herself with her staff like a walking stick, heavily implying that she is in a very weakened state thanks to having been host to the Chaos Kin for three years. Super Smash Brothers would later imply this further, with Palutena implying that at full strength she could massacre Pit if she fought him seriously.
In Chapter 12, Viridi tells Pit that he's more destructive than a reset bomb, while Pit retaliates that it's different because he's destroying evil. While this may seem a bit naive on his part it actually makes sense if you think of it from a political stand point. If you think of the human world and skyworld as allied nations (whether the humans know it or not) then Viridi launching reset bombs at the humans is not only declaring war on the humans but also on Skyworld. Therefore, the destruction Pit causes is completely justified (well, as justified as war can be) as he is only attacking and destroying military targets in retaliation, unlike Viridi, who not only attacks both military and civilian targets but does so completely unprompted.
This ones mixed with a bit of Fridge Horror. The only food Centurion Strongarms drop is meat. Because they're meatheads.
The reason why Hades doesn't show up in the Boss Rush? He's already dead, and the Boss Rush was a gift from him for beating the game. Out-of-universe, it's likely that Hades was excluded due to him being a multi-phase fight which is long enough to be it's own level.
So what would have happened if Magnus didn't pick up the ring that Pit was trapped in?
A betterhorror isthe concept of being stuck in a ring. You can't move at all. You can't communicate with the outside world. You can scream and shout for help but no one is going to hear you. Your life depends on if someone will pick up the ring and wear it around their finger. Now what would have happened if the ring got destroyed? The concept of Pit dying as a ring becomes something else entirely.
As an angel he can still be revived after death, and if he is it doesn't have to be as a ring, does it?
The problem with this statement is Pit confirms that Palutena is the one that revives him whenever he's finished in battle. However, the Chaos Kin is controlling Palutena. That means that Chaos Kin would give Pit a permanent death. If the ring was destroyed during that time period, that would imply that Pit would stay dead.
Something else could be considered. The fact that Pit and Dark Pit are connected to each other means that whatever state Pit is in, Dark Pit does feel it. Dark Pit didn't explain in detail what happened to him during the time Pit was in the ring, but given that Pit was in an And I Must Scream situation, Dark Pit might have been going through the same thing orsomething else entirely.
Dark Pit stated he was unconscious, or didn't exist. It's likely that whatever he experienced was similar to being asleep, like Pit was for those three years.
Except, if he was asleep, then he wouldn't be aware of the state he was in. Pit wasn't aware that he was in the ring for three years while Pittoo implies that he was conscious the entire time, but wasn't himself. It was so bad that Pittoo realized that he couldn't live without Pit.
More of Fridge Tearjerker combined with Harsher in Hindsight. The tearjerker is, throughout the entire game, Pit has been complaining about wanting to fly longer than five minutes and isn't happy how he has to rely on someone else to give him the power of flight. The fact everyone mocks him for not being able to fly doesn't help. Then comes chapter 21, where Pit flies longer than the given time in order to save Dark Pit from Chaos Kin. Palutena even pictures Pit talking about wanting to fly...yet his wings are burned up as a result of the heroic deed. What makes this Fridge though is the fact that Viridi warned Pit not to save Dark Pit because his wings would burn up. Pit doesn't listen to her and goes through with his rescue attempt at the cost of burning his wings. The game put an actual reference to Icarus by throwing Pit in this situation.
A bit of Nausea Fuel/Fridge Horror: Most of the food you get in the Womb Level is meat. It's established that Palutena can't reach you, so she's not the one sending you food. So where is the "meat" coming from, and what exactly are you eating?
The Forces of Nature, which have a lot of plant-based troops, drop an awful lot of fruits and vegetables...
Another one concerning the ring of chaos. So while Pit was stuck in the ring, that meant his body was a lifeless zombie. Magnus said that Pit and Palutena became the enemy of humanity. All we see before the boss fight is Pit's body attacking something before flying off. If Pit's body was like that for three years and Magnus implied that Pit is literally Palutena's puppet, then how many people has Pit's body killed? How much blood was stained on the innocent angel's body for the past three years to the point that Magnus and Gaol were forced to hunt Pit down and kill him?
At the end of the Aurum Saga, Aurum Pyrrhon's raging power upon defeat launches the Aurum mothership back into space. All's well ends well, right? Except the Aurum still exist, still more powerful than ever thanks to Pyrrhon's assimilation. Wherever the Aurum may end up, they'll just go back to tearing worlds apart to make themselves grow. The Aurum weren't defeated. They were merely fended off. By the time they're back at Pit's world, they may have grown and developed so much that not even the Gods and Goddesses can stop them, ensuring the end of the world...
But that's only if they managed to contain Pyrrhon's power. This troper is certain as long as no one inserts themselves into the Aurum brain that they'll go back to their original state before Pyrrhon foolishly merged himself with them.
The Aurum may even be dead, as Pit seems to have obliterated both Pyrrhon and the Aurum Brain.
Viridi has a badass moment against Aurum Pyrrhon where she drops a Reset Bomb on him. You already destroyed her depots, so where did she get that Reset Bomb, and if she had it all along, what stopped her from using it?
After defeating Dark Lord Gaol, if you look carefully, you may notice that her neck and shoulders are uncovered. Her idol states that she was forced to wear her cursed armor. Unless Gaol is wearing a shirt that doesn't cover the neck and shoulders, she may have been nude when she was forced into that armor.
That girl from chapter 18 looks an awful lot like the one Hades claimed to have orphaned.
Speaking of that girl, she was in the middle of a war between humans and angels OHH GOD!
She is implied to have simply run off after she lost the ring. Where to is never mentioned, but it seems irrelevant.
Just about everything about that girl, actually, if you pause to think. She's very young, let's say six, which means she, unlike the adults and older children, only remembers a world where there are three gods with associated forcesout to kill mankind as opposed to one stopping the other two. She is playing relatively near the city, which means she might live there - you know, the city that Pit's body and Palutena's army are attacking right now. Her parents let her just run off to play out there with no supervision, so either this is indeed Hades' orphan girl as theorised above or her parents are hiding from/fighting/killed by Palutena's forces. Not to mention the fact that her dress is covered in soot, implying that she doesn't have other clothes to change into or she can't right now - and the city is smoking quite impressively with all the fighting... And we never even learn her name or hear from her after that chapter.
So did everyone laugh when Pit went through his Sanity Slippage in chapter 23? It's not funny when you realize what happened in the previous chapter. Pit went through a major Break the Cutie phase from chapter 18-21 which included waking up to a destroyed world where Palutena turned her back on humanity, Pit's soulless body killing millions of people and all he has believed in is shattered before him. Viridi and Hades are not helping with their constant insults in chapter 19 and 20 when the topic concerns Palutena. Pit gets quieter in chapter 19 as a result of Palutena for not supporting him like during the Aurum arc and by chapter 20, he snaps at the possessed Palutena. By chapter 21, not catching the Chaos Kin makes his spirit break completely and at the end of the chapter, he sacrifices his wings to save Pittoo. Now given all that trauma, is it appropriate to make fun of Pit in that chapter now?
In chapter 18 Pit and Magnus have a discussion about how the centurions are so weak, and when Pit blames it on their ability to be revived over and over Mangus points out that Palutena revives Pit as well. Either they're assuming you died at least once in chapter two or Magnus killed Pit's body at least once during the time skip.
Probably not much of an example, but this pertains to the Tempura Wizard turning Pit into fried shrimp and then trying to eat him. Considering the Tempura Wizard also appears to be made out of fried shrimp, this can be interpreted as cannibalism.
All the enemies look pretty colorful and cartoony, but if you look at them in a more realistic light they become deathly disturbing. The Underworld Army consists of such pleasant things as floating, disembodied eyes, mouths, hands and noses, green brains on mouth-covered pillars, giant, hulk-like hearts with skulls for fists, walking stomachs that devour it's fellow demons to grow bigger and more powerful, skull-shaped masses of tormented souls that mind-rape you on contact, demonic disembodied heads of sheep and elephants, cyclopic amoeba creatures in jars and venom-swollen mushroom people with agonized expressions on their faces as their overstuffed bodies can burst at any moment. The majority of the Underworld Army seems to be modeled after organs... What makes it exponentially worse is that each of those monsters is actually an amalgamation of hundreds of innocent human souls, warped and twisted into these disgusting and humiliating forms by Hades. Hades might very well make his creations this hideous just to make the souls suffer even more.
What about the Syrens? They are combined bodies of women and birds, they seem happy and can fly, but.. Can Hades fuse Living Humans with Animals like birds to make those Syrens?!
On the topic of the game's weapons, the Somewhat Staff is stated to be a living creature. There's the weapon fusion system, where you can fuse one weapon with another to result in a more powerful weapon. Using a Somewhat Staff as a fusion catalyst, you're effectively killing a living creature by turning it into another weapon.
Even stranger is that this is the only weapon stated to be alive. So, how does it come alive if you fuse it from two other weapons?
Keep in mind that a goddess is the one handling the weapon fusions for you....
At one point in the second Kid Icarus game, Don mentions that the waterways you pass by are poisonous. Among the crimes Pit charges Medusa with in this, the third game, is poisoning rivers, which would naturally flow into other w...well Medusa wasn't even in the second game but it's safe to say the world hadn't fully recovered from her reign in the first.
Pit successfully disarms a reset bomb in midair, but a very large object, now on fire thanks to Pit, still lands on a human settlement from a very great height. Sure the damage it does won't be visible from space like the explosion caused by the fully armed bomb, but those humans will be lucky if it only turns out to be an inconvenience.
, then Arlon being a member of the Forces of Nature suddenly makes more sense because, technically, he's a part of the Earth.