26th February 2015, 6:20 AM
I must say that a LOT of the "this is a symbol of this" stuff I read online tends to not make too much sense. I mean, what exactly do we get out of the notion that the stone tower is the tower of babel? There's no indication that Link is being punished for getting too close to the gods, or any weird language stuff (all the nearby ghosts speak perfect Engrish). Even if there's a few parallels, it's not enough unless it actually adds something to the narrative. (I also don't subscribe to the notion that the whole game is supposed to be Link's death. The developers themselves debunked that one.)
More to the point, symbolism isn't the end goal of all art, it's just a tool. I don't like when movie makers insist on adding countless symbols that have nothing to do with either the characters or the plot of the movie in question. "Look, this character died covered in oil, just like those soldiers died for oil!" Not only is it a bit crass, the movie had NOTHING TO DO with oil, or pointless wars, so why the hell is that IN there?!
Still, it's fun to play around in now and again. I think the most annoyingly stubborn "SYMBOLISM!" claim has to do with Earthbound though. I remember finding it "an interesting take" when I first heard that the final boss could be interpreted as a fetus. "Huh" I thought. Then I kept seeing it over and over again, until it reached the point where instead of being "an interpretation", it was starting to be considered an undeniable fact about Earthbound. Videos and reviewers just would state, matter-of-factually, "Gigas is an unborn fetus", as though popular opinion had just plain settled the matter. Only a couple years ago did Itoi finally step forward to say that wasn't his intent (with the added wiggle room of "but I think it's whatever you want it to be"). Frankly, as time went on I started to see the comparison as little more than pareidolia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia The final boss was clearly meant to be a slowly degenerating bunch of unintelligible squiggles, and you could see whatever you wanted in that. In fact, someone else did when they just flipped one of his stages upside down. http://earthboundcentral.com/2014/09/a-d...at-giygas/ It looks a lot more like the original alien's face from the first game that way. Heck, even upside down it always looked like a screaming spectre to me.
There's a bigger point there though. What, exactly, does Giygas being a fetus actually add to the storyline? It's "symbolic" sure, but symbolic of what? Being creepy for it's own sake? Earthbound has an extremely well thought out story, and it can get dark, but I can't see what Giygas being a fetus actually adds to anything, and that to me is the biggest problem with that whole notion. In the same way teenagers often lament of how "censored" Disney movie versions of old fairy tales are, I think these sorts miss the point. As an adult, one realizes that Disney changed the stories so significantly because the original fairy tales were, frankly, HORRIBLE lessons to teach a child, from a more barbaric time. The original Little Mermaid was gory and dark, sure, but the reason is because it was teaching the exact OPPOSITE of the movie version's lesson: don't follow your heart and know your place, or you will live in horribly unnatural pain and die turning into sea foam.
With all that said, I should check out these videos at some point. There's still a good amount of perfectly legitimate symbolism to be gained from Majora's Mask. My favorite revolves around the deku butler's son.
More to the point, symbolism isn't the end goal of all art, it's just a tool. I don't like when movie makers insist on adding countless symbols that have nothing to do with either the characters or the plot of the movie in question. "Look, this character died covered in oil, just like those soldiers died for oil!" Not only is it a bit crass, the movie had NOTHING TO DO with oil, or pointless wars, so why the hell is that IN there?!
Still, it's fun to play around in now and again. I think the most annoyingly stubborn "SYMBOLISM!" claim has to do with Earthbound though. I remember finding it "an interesting take" when I first heard that the final boss could be interpreted as a fetus. "Huh" I thought. Then I kept seeing it over and over again, until it reached the point where instead of being "an interpretation", it was starting to be considered an undeniable fact about Earthbound. Videos and reviewers just would state, matter-of-factually, "Gigas is an unborn fetus", as though popular opinion had just plain settled the matter. Only a couple years ago did Itoi finally step forward to say that wasn't his intent (with the added wiggle room of "but I think it's whatever you want it to be"). Frankly, as time went on I started to see the comparison as little more than pareidolia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia The final boss was clearly meant to be a slowly degenerating bunch of unintelligible squiggles, and you could see whatever you wanted in that. In fact, someone else did when they just flipped one of his stages upside down. http://earthboundcentral.com/2014/09/a-d...at-giygas/ It looks a lot more like the original alien's face from the first game that way. Heck, even upside down it always looked like a screaming spectre to me.
There's a bigger point there though. What, exactly, does Giygas being a fetus actually add to the storyline? It's "symbolic" sure, but symbolic of what? Being creepy for it's own sake? Earthbound has an extremely well thought out story, and it can get dark, but I can't see what Giygas being a fetus actually adds to anything, and that to me is the biggest problem with that whole notion. In the same way teenagers often lament of how "censored" Disney movie versions of old fairy tales are, I think these sorts miss the point. As an adult, one realizes that Disney changed the stories so significantly because the original fairy tales were, frankly, HORRIBLE lessons to teach a child, from a more barbaric time. The original Little Mermaid was gory and dark, sure, but the reason is because it was teaching the exact OPPOSITE of the movie version's lesson: don't follow your heart and know your place, or you will live in horribly unnatural pain and die turning into sea foam.
With all that said, I should check out these videos at some point. There's still a good amount of perfectly legitimate symbolism to be gained from Majora's Mask. My favorite revolves around the deku butler's son.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)