The Second Monk

Lore & Background

The monastic order that tends the temple and the sealed god occupies a liminal space in the world of Shadow of the Colossus. They are neither fully allied with Dormin nor opposed to him in the way a hero would be; rather, they are custodians, bound by an ancient duty to keep the forbidden land sealed and its cycles unbroken. The First and Second Monks are the most visible expressions of this order, stationed at points of passage to turn back any outsider who stumbles into the plains.

The Second Monk, in particular, embodies the futility of that duty. By the time he confronts Wander, the young warrior has already slain thirteen colossi, and the land is growing more hostile, more reactive. The monk's plea to turn back is not a threat but a genuine, exhausted appeal—yet the colossi that answer the call of a slain giant do not distinguish between a warrior and a priest. His death is swift, almost incidental, and it lands with a quiet horror because the player has already accepted that the land will kill anything that stands in Wander's path.

Fans often read the two monks as a pair of bookends: the First Monk at the gate represents the world's initial, passive resistance, while the Second Monk in the deep interior represents its final, active (if doomed) attempt to say *stop*. Both fail. Both are killed by the same indifferent mechanism. In the game's broader theology, they are the conscience of a world that has long ago stopped listening to its own conscience.

In Their Own Story

The dust had not yet settled from the thirteenth colossus's fall when the monk appeared on the ridge, his robes the same faded ochre as the Second Monk's had been, his staff dragging a furrow through the pale earth. He did not draw a blade. He did not raise a shield. He simply stood with his back to the wind and spoke two words that carried the weight of every warning the land had ever issued.

Wander heard them. He always heard them. And he always walked past.

The ground shuddered. Something vast and ancient turned its gaze toward the small, robed figure on the hill, and the monk's final breath was a whisper that the wind stole before it could finish. The colossus did not even look at the body as it passed, its attention already fixed on the sword, the horse, the boy who would not stop. The dust settled again. The plains were quiet, as if nothing had happened, as if the land had simply exhaled.

Wander rode on. He did not look back. He never looked back.

Reader's Guide

The Second Monk is a robed guardian who appears in the later half of the game to warn Wander to abandon his quest.

He wears the same faded, earth-toned robes as the First Monk, with a hood and a simple staff, marking him as a member of the temple order that tends the sealed god. He does not attack, does not cast spells, and does not engage in combat. His entire function is verbal: he stands in Wander's path and tells him to turn back.

His relationship to the player is one of complicity. By the time the Second Monk appears, you have already killed thirteen colossi. His warning is not a plot gate or a puzzle; it is an emotional beat, a moment where the game asks you to feel the weight of what you have done. You can pause, you can read his words, you can feel the pull of stopping. But the narrative does not let you stop. You ride past him, and within moments a colossus kills him.

He does not change across the story because he never gets the chance to. He is a fixed point—a single, repeated plea that the world offers and the protagonist ignores. His tragedy is not that he is weak or wrong, but that his duty is to say one thing, and the world has already decided that one thing will not be enough.

For players who feel guilt over the colossi they have slain, the Second Monk's death is often the emotional turning point: the moment the game stops asking *can* you do this and starts asking *should* you.

Did You Know?

• The Second Monk's warning is nearly identical in spirit to the First Monk's, reinforcing the idea that the temple's guardians are bound to repeat the same plea regardless of how far the intruder has progressed.
• The colossus that kills the Second Monk does not target him as a combatant; it simply attacks the nearest living thing, making his death a tragic byproduct rather than a deliberate act of violence.
• The monks never draw weapons or use magic in the game, distinguishing them from the god Dormin and emphasizing their role as passive custodians rather than active combatants.
• The Second Monk's appearance in the later stages of the game means the player has already committed to the cycle, making his warning feel less like a challenge and more like a eulogy for the choice already made.