prokopetz:

downtroddendeity:

prokopetz:

Textual evidence that the speaker in Toto’s “Africa” is the protagonist of a late 1990s JRPG:

• 
  I hear the drums echoing tonight / But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation – JRPG protagonists’ love interests typically have access to some secret knowledge or heritage, often manifesting as voices that no-one else can hear

• I stopped an old man along the way / Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies

  – This is an utterly deranged interaction unless the speaker inhabits a world in which random passers-by can be counted on to have a single line of oddly plot-relevant dialogue apiece

• It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you / There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do

  – This couplet implies extraordinary combat prowess

• The wild dogs cry out in the night / As they grow restless, longing for some solitary company

  – Ordinarily reclusive monsters mysteriously growing restless and seeking human contact is a common textual justification for the high random encounter rates of old-school JRPGs

• 
  As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti / I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become

  – A clear reference to the speaker’s terrible hidden power, which they must master in order to assume their role as the Chosen One; sacred mountains are a customary site of quests to attain such mastery

• Gonna take some time to do the things we never had – An equally clear reference to an unfinished series of arcane sidequests.

“The Rains Down in Africa” is the name of the protagonist’s ultimate weapon that you get for completing said series of sidequests.