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version seven. http://demongin.org |
Rise from your Grave! (II)
Part one of my exegesis of Altered Beast.
Thursday, 2004-09-09 | Classic Gin, Literature, Philosophy, Videogames
| You once were a Roman Centurion, a brave warrior who knew no fear. When you died on the battlefield with courage and honor, you thought you would know peace and rest for all eternity. |
| Altered Beast |
In the interest of keeping with the larger theses on resurrection, I shall limit my remarks on the use of the second person in this text to two. This self-imposed limitition is not intended to imply that the use of the second person is not of crucial significance or that a future examination of the particulars of this useage vis-a-vis the intention of the authors would not bear succulent intellectual fruit. That disclaimer having been made, I ask that you accept the following general hypothesis regarding video games (as a medium) and the following specific hypothesis regarding Altered Beast:
- The use of the second person on the back of the box is the result of the basic and unavoidable epistemology of video games. Put more plainly, when the text on the back of the box (which is inexorably an exhortation to purchase a product) invites the reader to insert himself into the role of the protagonist as a reader, it does what the game itself does when it asks the player to insert himself into the role of the protagonist as a player. Both the game and the accompanying text then are an invitation to assume a role; how that role is assumed depends entirely on the medium (i.e. assuming the role when invited by the text is an act of pure imagination while assuming the role when invited by the game is imaginative and physical act).
- As the narrative on the back of the Altered Beast box invites us to assume the role of the protagonist, it also defines for us an identity. The context of the identity the reader/player is asked to take on is explained: a Roman centurion is 'a brave warrior who [knows] no fear.' The particulars of the identity the reader/player is asked to take on are also explained: 'you died on the battlefield with courage and honor' and were under the mistaken impression that 'you thought you would know peace and rest for all eternity.' To assume this identity as a reader and to assume this identity as a player, however, are two different things. The reader is merely asked to imagine that this is his identity. The player, however, is asked to be the agent of this identity. To put this more plainly, the player is literally asked (by this text on the back of the box) to become a Roman centurion and act as if he was under the impression that he 'would know peace and rest for all eternity.'
This matter of agency, we find, becomes crucial immediately. As the game opens, and the player (formerly a mere reader) has assumed the identity of the Roman centurion, the venerable Zeus commands: 'Rise from your Grave!'
As the player has assumed agency (which is more than to have merely taken up the role of the protagonist), he is required to do more in the first few seconds of his new-found agency than most people ever do with their own native agencies; he is commanded to rise from his grave. '...Zeus searched for a warrior strong and brave enough to rescue her. He chose you... and brought you back from the grave!'
Before I go on, however, we must discuss death. To understand death and 'the grave' as the authors would like us to is of utter centrality to our evaluation of the agency we're given as players.
The grave, if we follow the narrative as it's been laid out for us, is an experience just beyond our own finite, categorical experience; as we lie in the grave, we're conscious but no longer numbered among the living. We 'know peace and rest [emphasis mine].' To 'know' is the act of the conscious mind--not of the unconscious mind or a transcendent entity (like Zeus). If the authors were attempting to assert that a nothingness, a non-existence--one big silence--followed this life, they would have indicated that we were 'at' peace and rest. The would have used the verb of essence, the verb 'to be.'
Students of philosophy will have recognized at this point that the authors and programmers have set about realizing a Platonic universe. The soul of the centurion is immortal, as per Plato's Timeaus, and immune to divine injury. Of course it makes no sense in a world of Christian or atheistic epistemology for a transcendent presence to raise a dead soldier to do his bidding--the divine in these more familiar epistemologies is superordinate to the human. By the reckoning of the ancients, however, it makes perfect sense for Zeus to send an immortal soul, invincible against divine harm, to do combat with his divine enemies.
So, as we lie in our grave, our immortal soul contemplating peace and rest, our contemplation is interrupted by the command of the immortal god, Zeus. Our reputation in life has followed us into death quite necessarily--the body dies, but the reputation earned in life by the the immortal soul is indelible.
Finally, by prompting us to assume agency under these circumstances, the authors and programmers have granted us eternal life of the soul.
And an eternal soul, as we shall learn tomorrow, is indomitable.
