Why was Walter covered in black?

[Master_Sun]

At the end of the game, I mean. Anyone have an explanation?

[AuraTwilight]

That shit's blood. Take a guess why he's covered in it.

[angelofROOM302]

Yeah it's like dried up, old blood.

[LanceS133]

That shit's blood. Take a guess why he's covered in it.

lol ....yucky

[Master_Sun]

That shit's blood. Take a guess why he's covered in it.

No. I meant, in the final battle. He looks like a shadow.

[SHF]

its means hes invincible thats all. force field.
once the spears r impaled into mother, he transforms back into his mortal body
its the black obsidian substance that u c b4 u jump down.

[kideatsu]

Yeah it's like to show his immoratality at the point in the game. Kinda weird...

[Master_Sun]

I figured that, but I'm more interested in what it could possibly mean plot-wise? I mean, Walter was invincible all other times, but he wasn't covered in black before. However, the difference is that you can't even knock Walter down in the final battle when he's covered in the shadow-black, but in the middle of the game you can "temporarily" kill him.

[Agent of God]

^He just wanted to make sure the 21 sacraments were finished soon.
Thus he used all of his power and became invincible.

The fact that the "force field" abandons him, when you drive the spears into his huge corpse means that he somehow bonded himself to his corpse to gain more power.

[Mephisto]

I assumed something like his "mom"s protection, you know. That huge monster gave that "shield" to Walter or something along these lines to make Walter's job a lot easier for the final sacrament. Since the shield vanishes at every pierced spear I believe it was that monster doing for sure.

[Master_Sun]

Makes sense, I guess.

[AuraTwilight]

The giant monster isn't his mom, though, it's his corpse, and he was always connected to it.

[Mephisto]

How do you know? The theory of that monster is the big bad Walter and the Walter that we see is neither good nor bad is stupid.

[Nowh3re]

It can't be his mom since the 21 Sacraments weren't finished yet…

[Mephisto]

In SH3 the God wasn't born properly and it was there. It wasn't "complete" but it was alive and all. The same could happen with SH4 too.

[Nowh3re]

[...]
If thou would stop the Descent of the Devil, you must bury part of the
Conjurer's mother's flesh within the Conjurer's true body.

Thou must also pierce the Conjurer's flesh with the 8 spears of "Void,"
"Darkness," "Gloom," "Despair," "Temptation," "Source," "Watchfulness" and "Chaos."
Do so and the Conjurer's unholy flesh will become that which once it was,
by the grace of our Lord.

The Conjurer.

[Mephisto]

Oh, so that's what it meant

It gets the idea that Walter eventually became a demon "The Descent of the Holy Mother isn't holy one with. It's in fact the Descent of the Devil" or something along these lines. Thanks for explaining, I never got the idea at first. Even by reading stuff around.

[Master_Sun]

So, what, is the conclusion still the same or not? I mean, with the whole shadow-aura thing?

[AuraTwilight]

Basically, yea, but it's more so his own powers than loaning it from Mother.

[neonblack]

Also worth noting is that in Japanese culture, being 'black' means that one feels guilt, regret or sin.