Philosophy 101

by Andrew Long

It never ceases to amaze me what game developers will do in the name of legitimizing their product. In the most superficial sense, this translates into bigger, faster, shinier, and louder. Thus, technology progresses in an effort to make things seem constantly better. On a somewhat deeper level, there is character development. Once characters were able to advance beyond simple shapes, the urge to bestow personality and meaning upon them followed; first, with introductions such as "The year is 198x. Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" and then with deep and varied pasts such as that which was bestowed upon Cloud in Final Fantasy VII. Unfortunately, with character development also comes involuted plot, and with involuted plot comes what I have a bone to pick with: the random, unwarranted, wrongheaded, and in some cases ridiculous use of philosophy in order to legitimize a storyline. Plot twists are one thing, but trying to justify everything in the ramshackle framework of a philosopher's theory is usually the worst form of poor storytelling, and more often than not results in a story that feels rather like a cop-out.

I'll be the first to admit it: I hate philosophy. I barely attended the course during my first year at university, but during the classes I did attend, the reliance upon logical reasoning that philosophy is based upon was emphasized rather markedly. If A = B and B = C, then A = C; however, A does not equal D just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. A perfect example of this shoddy reasoning is Final Fantasy IX. Throughout the opening vignette, players are treated to a succession of screens asking such inane questions as "How do I know I really exist? Maybe I don't exist..." and "Having sworn fealty, must I spend my life in servitude?" These philosophical one-liners are promptly tagged with equally meaningless monikers- in the case of the preceding quotes, Sorrow and Dilemma- and then used to define characters so painfully one-dimensional as to put the most shallow NES-era character to shame.

Worse still is the resolution offered to these problems. If the developers want to use philosophy to enrich their games, they should follow the philosophy faithfully. Unfortunately, most philosophy that doesn't end in a religious cop-out ends up exhibiting a dreary view of the world, so generally, game developers solve this problem by coming up with an equally lame and illogical resolution in the game. To once again use the quotations from the opening scene of Final Fantasy IX as a point of reference, the quote questioning existence is solved in the end by Zidane facing an inane being spouting equally inane rubbish which seems to be lifted piecemeal from Star Wars. Our cat-tailed hero wins out by asserting that he does, in fact, exist, despite the fact that this allegedly all-powerful creature is all set to unleash non-existence upon the universe. Yes, the smarmy power of love wins again! The 'need' for a happy ending could be invoked as a justification for this, but as an answer to the question of existence, this resolution is woefully inadequate. At least Descartes used some sort of logical procedure to come to the determination that "I think, therefore I am." There really is no basis for "I just am, cuz gosh darn it, people like me," and it detracts from the satisfaction of the game's conclusion, and ends up making Omicron seem pointless and out of place.

Now none of this would even be a problem if the game wasn't trying to be intellectually stimulating in some capacity, but by putting this ersatz philosophy on display, not only does it send out a faulty message to gamers, it defeats the purpose of attempting to challenge their minds. It effectively ends up as more Hollywood-esque nonsense in a genre that, with the continual pervasion of FMV, moves distressingly towards something resembling a motion picture.

Sadly, all the signs point to this nonsense continuing. Tetsuya Takahashi, director of Xenosaga, has been fast and furious with the platitudes in the plethora of interviews he has been subjected to over the past month or so since the game's announcement. The subtitle for Xenosaga(Will for Power) is apparently lifted from Nietzsche, which immediately rings alarm bells. Nietzsche is perhaps the most over-referenced philosopher on life, and more often than not, people who end up invoking his name do so for precisely the reason they shouldn't: to legitimize whatever they happen to be writing. This argument may sound elitist, but there's just no excuse for basing an argument on something you know nothing about, not to mention an entire game!

At any rate, unless Xenosaga's plotline turns out to be good and ubermenschy, there's not even any justification for that particular name dropping. Even worse are the apparent connections being made as a result of this reference. For instance, in a recent interview, when the interviewer commented "Come to think of it, the main character, Shion, starts out on a ship named the Woglinde, which comes out of Nordic valkyrie lore," Takahashi responded by saying "That followed soon after Nietszche. He was connected with Wagner, so I pulled it from there." Oh, well then. I don't see anything wrong with that, aside from the fact that it's like saying that Louis XVI happened to be around at the same time as Rousseau, so they named a ship the Guillotine, because everything involved is loosely connected(not to mention French.)

Bah. Once again, I'm faced with the improbable and illogical conclusion that since A=B and B=C, A=D. One can only hope that the end product doesn't exhibit this foolishness, because it's really starting to get on my nerves.