The Values of Phenomena Gaming Part 1
With a few posts under my belt and refining of how I write posts, I wanted to create an interlude to synthesize my values in building Phenomena Gaming. I’m also processing images from screenshots for my Nier Replicant Series since I have learned how to screenshot from my Playstation 5 so that will take some time to format.
As readers of my previous posts have seen, I have a lot of personal influences in my values from various philosophical traditions and training. Philosophy is a great interest of mine. However, I wanted to challenge myself to define the values of Phenomena Gaming with only references to video games I have played. This post will have many potential spoilers for a variety of games but I will try to pull references from more classic games to reduce the risk of spoilers. This will be a multi-part series as I am utilizing a variety of games and narratives to exemplify my values.
Empires require symbols and tall buildings have long been a sign of dominance over nature and other movements.
I am Anti-Imperalist
In terms of Role-Playing Games, anti-imperialism is the most consistent value one can have, given the numerous examples of empires committing evil acts and perpetuating suffering to support their own existence. Playing through Final Fantasy VI (III on SNES), I just passed the scene where Kefka poisons the water supply in order to overtake Doma. Seeing this war crime as a way to preserve Empire soldiers and quickly overtake Doma, even as his superiors were saying don’t do it, shows a major problem with empires. Empires cannot be satisfied with what they have in terms of resources, control, and influence. Empires always want more and will act in immoral manners in order to secure more resources, control, and/or influence. If action is not taken directly by the autocrat, then underlings who believe the message of superiority will take matters into their own hands.
In the Dishonored series, an empire is overtaken by people who want to seize control of whale oil production and also want to limit freedom for a plague-ridden city. This is an example of empires having a key person problem. If one or two people are eliminated from the picture (in this case the kidnapping of the princess, Emily, and the murder of the Queen), it creates a power vacuum for evil people to use the structure of the empire for their own ends. The high overseers eventually fail but not before the plague festers killing thousands in the Empire’s main city.
Religious Texts and Precepts are also key aspects of empire, even if they look cute, or are blitzball prayers from 1,000 years ago.
Imperialism is not strictly limited to political intrigue. Final Fantasy X has a religious empire in the Yevon Faith. A common symbol of the Yevon faith is the prayers taken from past victory celebrations of blitzball, a popular sport in Final Fantasy X. The Yevon faith lies to the entire world about the nature of Sin, a monster which ravages the world, and about the purpose of the summoners. Summoners bring a time-limited Calm which results in the summoner becoming the new Sin and the Yevon faith lies about how to end the cycle saying there is no end. Creating cycles of suffering gives Yevon power by making people dependent upon the religious empire for meaning, purpose, and security. This cycle is only broken because Yuna refuses to sacrifice one of her friends for the creation of the Final Aeon and takes the long journey to destroy Sin for good.
Authoritarian Attitudes can also give people imperialistic intentions. Shido in Persona 5 Royal shapes a representative government in his image by blaming the Diet members for corruption in numerous public advertisements for his campaign for Prime Minister and attempting to destroy the lives of dissenters by putting them under increased surveillance. For example, the main protagonist in Persona 5 is under police probation after Shido tries to sexually assault a woman in the opening scene and he shoves Shido preventing his drunkenly assault.) Shido also takes bribes and uses the police to harass the Phantom Thieves, once he discovers they are stealing the hearts of people harming others.
Empires take many forms but any structure which allows people to use power in order to harm others is morally problematic.
We are free to choose and embrace life, with certain qualifying conditions.
I Believe in Free Will (sort of)
The world exists as a probability and not a certainty. Final Fantasy XIII-2 presents one timeline where Noah, the main male protagonist, is alone at the end of human existence. Before he is killed by a void monster, he is sent back to the past to meet Serah to change the flow of time in an attempt to not have the world be destroyed. There are key choke points, such as a flan sucking up the energy of the forest, where Noah and Serah can intervene. By collecting items and traveling back and forth through time, Noah and Serah prevent one ending of the world, only to get stuck on a cliffhanger, where Lightning, Serah’s sister, has to overcome time, puzzles, and evil to create a peaceful ending in Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns.
Time is a malleable construct in many video games and the ability to travel back and forth through time to change the shape of the present is a common theme. Chrono Trigger is a classic game where you are trying to prevent Lavos from ending the world. You stop Magus from overrunning a human castle, bring seeds into an apocalyptic future to give the worn down humans hope, destroy reptiles who try to use a volcano to disrupt prehistoric humans, and visit wizards who live in the sky to try to prevent an ice age. At the end, you hunt Lavos through every age to prevent his summoning from all who would try to summon him to destroy the world.
We are bound by certain limits in thinking of free will.
There are two caveats to free will: our inability to see all of the probabilities of life in real time, and two our own formation and influences which give us blind spots preventing people from full freedom. Final Fantasy VII remake is a prime example. The original timeline of Final Fantasy VII is mentioned as the worst of all possible outcomes when the world is barely saved from destruction by Meteor and the Weapons because of the Holy Materia (and of course Aerith dying, which I felt was deeply tragic). However, we cannot see the probabilities take form yet because Part 2 isn’t out until next year. I’m really curious to see how they will delineate the probabilities when we get that far.
Dreamscaper is a great game to see how personal trauma hinders free will. Cassidy has intense nightmares every night of social anxiety, losing a sister, and feelings of deep depression. During the day, Cassidy has to try to rebuild pieces in struggling to form new relationships and rebuilding her life to cope with her traumas. She makes choices but until more relationships form and she finds her own healing, she is unable to see some of the potential she has. Cassidy is free but limited because of her life circumstances and trauma responses.
Free will exists because life is not deterministic in its very nature. Time and Being exist as probabilities rather than certainties. However, we never have full consent when we make our choices because we cannot see all of the probabilities which will happen as a result of our choices.
