On Current Society

[ARCHIVE: This was supposed to be an "Final Fantasy VI is awesome" post but turned into something bigger]

So I've reestablished my rapport with video games. But what it took was a rediscovery of my gaming roots. There were just no new games out (at present) that could grab my attention and rivet me in front of the television. So like a librarian trying to enjoy reading again, I went back to my game library and picked out a tired and true classic.

Final Fantasy VI. Considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time, and thought of by most as the benchmark against which RPG video games are compared against. This is the closest thing to Lord of the Rings that the gaming media form has, and I say this fully aware of the claim that makes. The game is epic, masterfully done, and riveting. The cast of characters is diverse and captivating. Everyone can identify with a favorite protagonist from the cast. The story ebbs and flows, with moments of action and tension, as well as wonderful moments of intimate characterization. It is an epic.

(yeah, so I'm a bit Tolkien crazy right now. So what?!)

It worked like a charm. I've played the game through several times, and though I know what the next step is, though I know what town to travel to, I find great satisfaction in working my way through the story. And I've put in less than ten hours of gameplay so far!

The game is so ambitious that it includes an opera scene. Granted, it's a midi-format, synthesizer-driven version of the music, but somehow you get past all that, and you see a genuine story, told as well as could be told with the limitations of the technology of the day. This is provable, because certain scenes, like the aforementioned opera, were revisited and redone with full motion computer graphics, with phenomenal results.

But anyway, I replayed the opera scene. There is a little mini-story, about love denied and fought for, very reminiscent of a classic Romeo and Juliet tale. There's two warring factions, the East and the West, and the war-torn lovers, in this case Draco & Maria, although here there are both Westerners. It is the Eastern Prince that is from the East, and interlopes in their relationship. It's not the first time I've played the scene, but this time when I played through, I was immensely drawn to it. I felt an entire gamut of emotions flowed through me. Hopelessness. Forlornness. Surprise. Renewed faith. Everything that I felt over months of my life was suddenly compressed into ten minutes.

And suddenly, I realized that this was part of the reason why I'm so fscked up. Granted, that's a very opinionated view of how I am, but sans judgment, I'll still put forth that it's affected how I've grown up.

Most people think that if you grow up with video games, you grow up with a very nineties mentality. You're jaded and cynical. Your mind is supposed to be realistic and grounded. You don't dream of idealistic things like love or heroism. You work in the here and now, surrounded by corruption and grays. You're a product of popular media. And they're right.

But.

They're in the thick of it as well (they being the psychologists and social commentators). The problem is that they're older. All they see within us is corruption and Columbines waiting to happen. They see the extremes, the things that appear on the news. To their credit, they're called in usually to analyze the problem kids that make the evening news. They see the terrible/tasteless things that are in modern day media, like Dave Mirra BMX XXX and Cool Devices. If there's one bad thing that could influence our development, it must be the only thing that we're watching and being affected by. They forget.

They forget the great stories that we also see. They forget that we too can have heroes and morals. We may live in a modern world, but the modern world has its own mythology as well. We have Spider-Man. We have Star Wars. We have stories that can transcend social boundaries. We have ideals and beliefs that we can get behind. It's not quite as clear cut; good and evil aren't as black and white as it used to seem/be presented. But it's still there. I still believe that things will turn out for the better in the end.

But that could be because I, too, am in the thick of it. I've grown up exposed to the good and the bad. But the stories that speak to me are not the ones that incite discourse, but the ones that relate the great things in life; courage, perseverense, love. I choose to be optimistic; not necessarily for how things will turn out for me, but in general. I hope that my story will happy, but I don't expect it to. So even though I know something won't work out, I always have that small little corner of myself that's banking on the one in a million chance. It's unrealistic, but as someone who is perpetually optimistic, I can never stand to kill it off entirely, even when I know I'm being unreasonable. It's a state I like to call "General optimist, personal pessimist."

Why do I not extend the same hope I have in humanity to myself? As a people, I believe that our race has individuals who can and will rise to the occasion when called. But I do not see that for myself. I see myself as one of the faceless masses, one of the ordinary people who never rise into prominence. But still hope that it won't. I think that history will pass me by. But that doesn't mean that I don't wish that it wouldn't.