26th February 2015, 4:31 PM
I see what you mean SJ. Don't misunderstand, I'm fully willing to ignore authorial intent. However, I do like a cohesive whole. That's the main difference. I can't really separate different sections so entirely in my head. My mind inevitably drifts around, and if the small thing I'm looking at some interpretation to doesn't fit the "bigger" picture, something's got to give, and it's usually the smaller thing. I do know what you mean about "it's all in their head" being rather lazy though. On a personal note, I treat "they've been dead the whole time" as belonging to the same category. One can take basically ANY plot and say "this is their afterlife and none of it was real", so I tread lightly around such theories. I've heard theories like that for Earthbound and Final Fantasy 8 before, for example. Heck, I once heard a theory like that for Kirby of all things. So, my rule is "do I find this idea actually improves the story, or the intent (those two don't necessarily overlap), or is it just "dark" for the sake of being "dark"? For me, it's not often the former. When I see these theories, all too often the entirety of the theory is done by "finding clues" (things that allow for that interpretation) but not too often do I see theories that actually explain unexplained stuff in the story using that theory, or expand on themes or character development otherwise left in the dark because of it. Squall, for example. Basically the entirety of that fan theory is "there's a bunch of plot holes I couldn't fill in very well, but if Squall was dead I wouldn't need to explain them". At no point do they explain how ANYTHING Squall actually attempted from the moment he recovered from getting impaled was part of his journey to the afterlife. He never actually "accepts" that he's gone. If anything he fights it every step of the way and it ends with him together with all his friends. The whole theme of the game was finding friendship, and I'm not sure how the heck a ghost is supposed to do that. I don't need to dwell on Kirby so much, but basically I dismiss that as 12 year olds trying to make Kirby seem "edgy" to their friends. Xenogears, well, that's the sort of game that's going to get LOADS of people interpretting all sorts of things, but the cast being dead flys directly in the face of the main message of the whole game (that life is worth living just for it's own sake and death is to be avoided). Link, well, okay an argument could be made. I COULD see the whole journey involving those masks being one of dealing with death by seeing how others dealt with their deaths and how the world in general faces it. Of all of them, Majora's Mask comes closest to having an actual point to such a fan theory. I'll give it my respect for that much at least. Nevertheless, the same message comes across just fine even without Link himself having to face his own mortality. Also, he's trying to do everything he can to AVOID catastrophe. It's a rather major point that undermines that theory. I do think the game clearly has themes of death, but for me the clear interpretation is that seeing how all those people react to utter extinction drives one to prevent it, to cherish all the time one has and make the most of it (again, Groundhog's Day) because just accepting that fate, just giving in, only guarantees that fate. Even if it is actually pointless to fight it, it's even more pointless to accept it, because that does nothing, and you'll only confirm that pointlessness for sure if you at least try. For my part, Link being alive is very important to the narrative about facing death. If he's just a ghost, then everything he saw was meaningless.
Now, on the other hand, you've got Silent Hill. The "death" interpretation is just one of many, but everything about the game fits it extremely well, and that interpretation really adds to the experience. By and large, these games are about facing the past rather than the future, about facing up to how one has lived their life up to that point. To that end, the main character being dead the whole time feeds into that very nicely.
Well, that's just how I see things. I like cohesive wholes in my interpretations, that's the main thing. You know, like dark matter vs modified gravity. At the level of the spiral rotation of galaxies, both fit well, both models are interchangeable. However, take it beyond that look and you find all manner of things which dark matter predicts but modified gravity utterly fails at. At that point, it's hard to really take modified gravity too seriously even at the galactic rotation level any more. It's domain of relevance was matched and exceeded by another, so I favor it.
Now, on the other hand, you've got Silent Hill. The "death" interpretation is just one of many, but everything about the game fits it extremely well, and that interpretation really adds to the experience. By and large, these games are about facing the past rather than the future, about facing up to how one has lived their life up to that point. To that end, the main character being dead the whole time feeds into that very nicely.
Well, that's just how I see things. I like cohesive wholes in my interpretations, that's the main thing. You know, like dark matter vs modified gravity. At the level of the spiral rotation of galaxies, both fit well, both models are interchangeable. However, take it beyond that look and you find all manner of things which dark matter predicts but modified gravity utterly fails at. At that point, it's hard to really take modified gravity too seriously even at the galactic rotation level any more. It's domain of relevance was matched and exceeded by another, so I favor it.
"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)