Link to original post: [drupal=3022]"Yeah, well, your *** was overrated!!!" [SotC wars][/drupal]
Warning: Possible spoilers for that one game. (Shadow of the...wait, what were we talking about?)
Blame Marc. Really.
Last night, I could not find my Fire Emblem game disc. I just moved, and I still have junk in boxes that I don't have space for. (By "just moved," I really mean I moved about...4 or 5 months ago. But who's counting?)
So I was considering either going through random boxes that may or may not contain a disc (probably not in the right game box either), or playing something else.
That's when my eye landed on a possibility.
"Oh, that overrated mess some guy was going on about in that one thread where I dug a massive hole to the middle of nowhere in an attempt to out-think myself."
It being 12 midnight ought to have been a sign for me to just turn in for the night. Or maybe I just needed to forget that I had a fun-filled day ahead of me, a day brimming with endless dilutions and hours of manual bulb pipetting (if you don't know what that is, you don't need to know).
The sound of my PS 2 working still makes me nervous, as I remember stories on the web about people who found fried, dead cockroaches in their consoles after the systems started glitching.
By 2 AM, I realized that the next time I decide to run my mouth on some Internet forum about a game, I might want to touch base with the source material at least one more time before I go.
So, the thing, about that thing:
The "story" in SotC.
Some games add story to increase the gravity of the situation, to make the player feel a greater sense of purpose to the task of pushing buttons in a certain sequence and watching pixels flash on a screen. SotC does this too, but not in the usual way.
In the game, the Colossi serve as visual representations of both the magnitude of the task at hand, as well as its importance to the protagonist. It also depicts the difference in power and capacity--to scale--between the hero and the divine forces he is playing with (and, consequently, being played by).
The Colossi appear as moving mountains. To take them down, you must scale them, the way a climber would a mountain. And as a climber on a mountain, it becomes evident that you, the climber, are an insignificant part of this moving landscape. The Colossi are like parts of the land itself, and the land is what holds everything else up. While you are on it, you play by its rules. In this world, Wander is dwarfed by everything, from the Colossi, to the sprawling plains, to the cryptic ruins, even by his own freaking horse.
This exaggeration--the size difference between the climber and the mountain--emphasizes three things: 1) How far he's willing to go to revive this girl; 2) how much power the Colossi have compared to him; 3) how little the world cares about his presence.
If one thing is true about this place, it is that within it, you are NOT the "chosen one." You have not been "selected" by a divine power for some divine purpose. You are just a guy, a small guy, in a big world. You sought out those higher powers on your own, and those higher powers can either make or break you. Your horse is not your slave; your horse has her own will--it takes effort to control her when you ride--and she stays by your side because she chooses to. This is an implication that the other elements of this world also have their own intentions, their own will, and those intentions also have nothing to do with you. This world was here before you came; it was not waiting for you. And when you found it, it decided to use you.
Into this place, Wander comes and accepts the pact he is offered. I can gauge, visually, by proportions, how difficult the task is that he's taken on. There are no power ups, no magic that will slay a beast from a distance, something that would compensate for the size difference. The sacred sword will show you where to go, but you must still wield it like a normal sword. And for each Colossus, you must climb, from the ground to the sky; you must bridge the gap between small and large, between the insignificant and the divine. It's like watching an ant take on an elephant. And the game forces you to see it; the game can capture it in a single shot, without words.
When Wander falls, he doesn't immediately jump back to his feet. He lies there until he comes to his senses. When he does rise, he doesn't spring up, ready to fight; he plants his hands and his knees against the ground, and he forces himself to rise. He isn't a superhero, and he isn't even a warrior. He rises the way an untrained person would, like he's shaking away a concussion; he wields his sword like someone unaccustomed to it. He has very little else to go on but his own determination. And yet he scales the first Colossus, and then he proceeds to do it again and again.
Without knowing who the girl is, or what his relation to her is, all of this already tells me how much it means to him to revive her. I only know that he needs to do this. You can leave me wondering about the rest; I'm okay with that.
I don't know what cliches are considered truths, and I don't specifically look for characters to relate to in games or in fiction (if I did, I would play no games and read no books). But if there is something for me--something akin to insight--in all of this, it is the idea that an ant can take down an elephant. Because, in the real world, with all its complicated systems in which individuals become mere parts of an incomprehensible whole, the things that rule us are as giants, and we stand in their shadow. The day an ant takes down an elephant is the day it becomes an elephant. But that transition means that it must suffer the consequences of now standing tall, now being seen, as formations of the landscape are seen. Power is also feared, and visibility is the elephant's weakness, as invisibility is an ant's strength.
To become great means that, as a mountain, another may also have cause to scale you--and to slay you.
Warning: Possible spoilers for that one game. (Shadow of the...wait, what were we talking about?)
Blame Marc. Really.
Last night, I could not find my Fire Emblem game disc. I just moved, and I still have junk in boxes that I don't have space for. (By "just moved," I really mean I moved about...4 or 5 months ago. But who's counting?)
So I was considering either going through random boxes that may or may not contain a disc (probably not in the right game box either), or playing something else.
That's when my eye landed on a possibility.
"Oh, that overrated mess some guy was going on about in that one thread where I dug a massive hole to the middle of nowhere in an attempt to out-think myself."
It being 12 midnight ought to have been a sign for me to just turn in for the night. Or maybe I just needed to forget that I had a fun-filled day ahead of me, a day brimming with endless dilutions and hours of manual bulb pipetting (if you don't know what that is, you don't need to know).
The sound of my PS 2 working still makes me nervous, as I remember stories on the web about people who found fried, dead cockroaches in their consoles after the systems started glitching.
By 2 AM, I realized that the next time I decide to run my mouth on some Internet forum about a game, I might want to touch base with the source material at least one more time before I go.
So, the thing, about that thing:
The "story" in SotC.
Some games add story to increase the gravity of the situation, to make the player feel a greater sense of purpose to the task of pushing buttons in a certain sequence and watching pixels flash on a screen. SotC does this too, but not in the usual way.
In the game, the Colossi serve as visual representations of both the magnitude of the task at hand, as well as its importance to the protagonist. It also depicts the difference in power and capacity--to scale--between the hero and the divine forces he is playing with (and, consequently, being played by).
The Colossi appear as moving mountains. To take them down, you must scale them, the way a climber would a mountain. And as a climber on a mountain, it becomes evident that you, the climber, are an insignificant part of this moving landscape. The Colossi are like parts of the land itself, and the land is what holds everything else up. While you are on it, you play by its rules. In this world, Wander is dwarfed by everything, from the Colossi, to the sprawling plains, to the cryptic ruins, even by his own freaking horse.
This exaggeration--the size difference between the climber and the mountain--emphasizes three things: 1) How far he's willing to go to revive this girl; 2) how much power the Colossi have compared to him; 3) how little the world cares about his presence.
If one thing is true about this place, it is that within it, you are NOT the "chosen one." You have not been "selected" by a divine power for some divine purpose. You are just a guy, a small guy, in a big world. You sought out those higher powers on your own, and those higher powers can either make or break you. Your horse is not your slave; your horse has her own will--it takes effort to control her when you ride--and she stays by your side because she chooses to. This is an implication that the other elements of this world also have their own intentions, their own will, and those intentions also have nothing to do with you. This world was here before you came; it was not waiting for you. And when you found it, it decided to use you.
Into this place, Wander comes and accepts the pact he is offered. I can gauge, visually, by proportions, how difficult the task is that he's taken on. There are no power ups, no magic that will slay a beast from a distance, something that would compensate for the size difference. The sacred sword will show you where to go, but you must still wield it like a normal sword. And for each Colossus, you must climb, from the ground to the sky; you must bridge the gap between small and large, between the insignificant and the divine. It's like watching an ant take on an elephant. And the game forces you to see it; the game can capture it in a single shot, without words.
When Wander falls, he doesn't immediately jump back to his feet. He lies there until he comes to his senses. When he does rise, he doesn't spring up, ready to fight; he plants his hands and his knees against the ground, and he forces himself to rise. He isn't a superhero, and he isn't even a warrior. He rises the way an untrained person would, like he's shaking away a concussion; he wields his sword like someone unaccustomed to it. He has very little else to go on but his own determination. And yet he scales the first Colossus, and then he proceeds to do it again and again.
Without knowing who the girl is, or what his relation to her is, all of this already tells me how much it means to him to revive her. I only know that he needs to do this. You can leave me wondering about the rest; I'm okay with that.
I don't know what cliches are considered truths, and I don't specifically look for characters to relate to in games or in fiction (if I did, I would play no games and read no books). But if there is something for me--something akin to insight--in all of this, it is the idea that an ant can take down an elephant. Because, in the real world, with all its complicated systems in which individuals become mere parts of an incomprehensible whole, the things that rule us are as giants, and we stand in their shadow. The day an ant takes down an elephant is the day it becomes an elephant. But that transition means that it must suffer the consequences of now standing tall, now being seen, as formations of the landscape are seen. Power is also feared, and visibility is the elephant's weakness, as invisibility is an ant's strength.
To become great means that, as a mountain, another may also have cause to scale you--and to slay you.
