Medusa

For levels with the F-777 song, see Medusa (Disambiguation).

I’m better! I’m smarter! I’m faster! I’m stronger! I...am...MEDUSA!
- Medusa, Medusa

Medusa is an antagonist character in the Black Heart collection created by ol666. They are Jestar Heart’s most powerful assassin. Medusa was first shown as a teaser at the very end of A New Dawn but never made a formal appearance until their solo boss level Medusa.

History

After Jestar obtained one of the player's souls, he created Medusa using Nautilus' replicated body and Aura's magic (at the end of A New Dawn). He ordered Medusa to petrify everyone in Heart Locket, leaving Nautilus alive to suffer.

Once the player and Nautilus escaped from the Locket, they started to search for Medusa. They found them rather quickly, and they fought against the player. Before they struck the fatal blow, they were ambushed by Nautilus, who knocked out Medusa with a punch. Their gem turned black, but was not fully destroyed. A moment later Medusa was teleported away, presumably by Jestar.

Description

Appearance

Medusa is a teal square with green hair and black rectangular eyes. They have a turquoise, hexagonal gem on their forehead. They also have a pair of hexagonal hands.

Personality

Medusa is overconfident in their own abilities and is undeniably loyal to Jestar. They believe themselves to be the best of Jestar’s assassins and the one that will bring Jestar the next soul.

Abilities

Summoning lightning
Attacking with a variety of energy/magic based attacks, including lasers and bullets
Summoning giant crystals
Conjuring giant sawblades
Creating and attacking with hammers
Can turn people into stone
Duplicating themselves

Trivia

Since Medusa was created by essentially combining Nautilus and Aura, they naturally have multiple similarities to both of them:
- The hexagonal shape of Medusa’s power crystal and hands is a callback to Aura’s hexagon-shaped body.
- Some of Aura’s attacks are used by Medusa, such as the small hexagon bullets coming from the center, splitting into two, and large hexagon crystals moving across the screen.
- Medusa’s body shape and size is the same as Nautilus’.
- Medusa’s eyes turn into ovals when they use some electricity-related, similar to Nautilus when he attacks with a laser.
- Medusa spins to move quickly to another position, similar to Nautilus in First Crush.
- Medusa's, Aura's, and Nautilus's names all come from the title of the song used in their respective solo levels.
- Medusa's name is also a name given to the common body type of jellyfish, possibly a parallel to how Nautilus is named after a sea creature.
Ironically, despite Medusa saying they're not like Aura and Nautilus, they are like them considering they’re a combination of both and the aforementioned similarities.
- Additionally, Medusa was defeated by Nautilus with a single punch to the face - proving their claims of being stronger as possibly wrong.
Medusa was originally referred to as “he” by Nautilus at the end of Medusa. However, after a poll held by ol666 through a YouTube community post, Medusa was changed to be genderless, and the level was updated so that “he” was replaced with “they”.^[1]
Medusa’s design was inspired by the artwork shown in the video upload of the song Medusa on F-777’s YouTube. Specifically, their color scheme, hexagon theming, and lightning abilities are derived from it.^[2]
So far, Medusa is one of the only characters to appear in Black Heart with hair, alongside Siren.
- Aura is shown with hair in Song of Storms, but this design has yet to appear in a Black Heart level.
Medusa draws heavy inspiration from Medusa in Greek Mythology, including their ability to turn people into stone.
- In an unreleased content video uploaded on ol666's birthday, Medusa was shown wearing a traditional Greek outfit with a heavily Greece-styled arena in the background.^[3]