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Fiction for Utilitarians: Elsinore
Jul. 26th, 2019 01:07 amThis just beat Majora's Mask, Oxenfree, AND The Sexy Brutale for best time-loop game I've ever played. (I've yet to play Outer Wilds.)
In four days, almost everyone in Elsinore will die, and you're the only one who remembers. They don't respect you, but they also don't notice you, skulking around in the shadows and overhearing their secrets. Can you make them listen, or will they dismiss you--for your race, your sex, your status, or their certainty that they know what they're doing? Which lives can you save? Which horrors can you prevent? And where do you want this story to end?
(I told my mother this is a game about having all the information and none of the power to get people to act on it. She said that sounded like her life.)
( SPOILERS )
In four days, almost everyone in Elsinore will die, and you're the only one who remembers. They don't respect you, but they also don't notice you, skulking around in the shadows and overhearing their secrets. Can you make them listen, or will they dismiss you--for your race, your sex, your status, or their certainty that they know what they're doing? Which lives can you save? Which horrors can you prevent? And where do you want this story to end?
(I told my mother this is a game about having all the information and none of the power to get people to act on it. She said that sounded like her life.)
( SPOILERS )
I’m still playing Death Mark
Feb. 12th, 2019 01:01 amEita’s kind of an odd character for an optional party member. He’s cowardly, he’s unathletic, and his character portrait constantly has sweat rolling down his face. Still, he seems more informed about what’s going on than Christie. I might as well try him.
I can’t progress without climbing a tree, and he’s too heavy to make it up.
I need to get past a dog that hates men, so I can’t have him along.
You know what, after I solve these puzzles, I’m going to go back and bring him after all, just because the game is trying to force me not to. I want to see what happens when I keep going against the grain.
( Read more... )
I can’t progress without climbing a tree, and he’s too heavy to make it up.
I need to get past a dog that hates men, so I can’t have him along.
You know what, after I solve these puzzles, I’m going to go back and bring him after all, just because the game is trying to force me not to. I want to see what happens when I keep going against the grain.
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Feb. 2nd, 2019 01:36 pmThere’s a specific scene in Steven Universe that’s everything I want from “dark” media.
( Read more... )
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I finally beat Persona 5. I’m still gathering my thoughts for a full post, but one thing I can say–Paranoia Agent just got one-upped. Hard.( Read more... )
Fiction for Utilitarians: Ender's Game
Dec. 8th, 2018 06:09 pmWhen a story is written to promote a way of living, there’s a very specific formula to how it will go. The protagonist encounters problems, adopts the way of living, and the problems go away because their way of living fixes everything. There’s often another character who follows an inferior way of living, trying and failing to solve the same problem, and they’ll either die or change their minds upon seeing the protagonist succeed. There are a few wrinkles in the formula–the protagonist dies saving everyone, the protagonist loses his love interest because his way of life matters more to him than love–but by and large, any story about how to be a good person and live a good life can be summed up in this way.
As a Utilitarian, I naturally have a grudge about how this tends to play out. It’s the tragic villains who tend to espouse Utilitarian values, doing something horrible because every alternative they see is worse. The heroes are the ones who refuse to accept this, then pull off a solution that saves everyone, because the person writing the story made there be a solution that saves everyone. If the Utilitarian was right, and there weren’t any other choices, then by stopping him, the heroes would be responsible for something horrible, and we can’t have that, now can we?
Of course, I can’t claim the rules work any differently for moral relativist heroes. I once read a truly vile book called The Soprano Sorceress where the protagonist murders her way onto the throne, kills thousands of civilians to stay in power, and justifies it all as being for the greater good. Apart from all the bodies she piles up, it basically works out like she planned. You can’t have your hero killing people if there was any better solution to the problem. You can’t, unless you’re Orson Scott Card and you’re writing Ender’s Game.
( Read more... )
As a Utilitarian, I naturally have a grudge about how this tends to play out. It’s the tragic villains who tend to espouse Utilitarian values, doing something horrible because every alternative they see is worse. The heroes are the ones who refuse to accept this, then pull off a solution that saves everyone, because the person writing the story made there be a solution that saves everyone. If the Utilitarian was right, and there weren’t any other choices, then by stopping him, the heroes would be responsible for something horrible, and we can’t have that, now can we?
Of course, I can’t claim the rules work any differently for moral relativist heroes. I once read a truly vile book called The Soprano Sorceress where the protagonist murders her way onto the throne, kills thousands of civilians to stay in power, and justifies it all as being for the greater good. Apart from all the bodies she piles up, it basically works out like she planned. You can’t have your hero killing people if there was any better solution to the problem. You can’t, unless you’re Orson Scott Card and you’re writing Ender’s Game.
( Read more... )
