rionaleonhart | That's Not For You To Decide.

Crossposts: http://rionaleonhart.livejournal.com/370615.html

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That's Not For You To Decide.

If you've played The Last of Us and you haven't yet watched this video of the motion capture for an alternative ending, you absolutely must. I found it very moving.

It's very strange to go back to the Uncharted games after playing The Last of Us. The games share many elements, but they're utterly different in tone. In The Last of Us, killing people makes sense given the context and the character you're playing, and it's treated as brutal and horrific but unavoidable to survive. In the Uncharted games, you're loveable, good-hearted treasure hunter Nathan Drake and the fact that you kill thousands of mercenaries is cheerfully ignored.

(It's also bizarre that picking up twenty bullets at a time is a common occurrence in Uncharted. In The Last of Us, it's Christmas if you manage to find three.)

I suppose 'ha ha, Nate is such a charming dork, TIME TO KILL ANOTHER HUNDRED MERCENARIES' is the problem with trying to tell stories in a videogame. I'm a fierce believer in the narrative potential of games, but games do typically require some sort of gameplay, and sometimes that gameplay is at odds with the story being told. In lighthearted games like the Uncharted series, I suppose you sort of have to ignore the ridiculous amounts of murder you end up committing; it'll completely undermine the way the characters are presented if you think about it for too long. ALL THIS SHOOTING IS A METAPHOR FOR TRAVERSING TRICKY TERRAIN.

This is something that occasionally bothers me in Final Fantasy games, too; most of the games involve human enemies, usually soldiers of some sort, and it rarely seems appropriate for the characters to cut them down without a qualm. It's always a bit odd to think, Hang on, Snow Villiers seems like a really nice guy, but I just made him punch someone to death.

I'm sure there's a term for this clash between gameplay and tone/story/characterisation. Hang on while I look it up. Ludonarrative dissonance! That's it. Uncharted is ludonarratively dissonancing all over the place.

It's a tricky problem to solve. Not every game in which you fight people can be The Last of Us; The Last of Us is a wonderful game, but I wouldn't be able to cope with that level of bleakness in everything. So I suppose for the moment I'll just accept the fact that loveable treasure hunter Nathan Drake can punch some guys on a train to death and then quip, 'All right, boys, just needed to punch your tickets,' and I'll laugh and say 'Nate, you dork' rather than 'Oh, my God, what's wrong with you?'

After writing the above, I went off and finished my replay of Uncharted 2. I had forgotten how much I love the ending of that game! Nate/Elena continues to be one of my favourite pairings of all time, and their interactions continue to make me make absurd chirping noises. I also really like the friendship that develops between Elena and Chloe; I remember I worried when they first met that their dynamic would be rooted solely in romantic jealousy, so I was surprised and delighted that they ended up getting along extremely well as co-founders of the 'Nathan Drake Ruined Our Lives' club.

LET'S IGNORE ALL THE MERCENARIES THESE GUYS HAVE KILLED AND FOCUS ON HOW MUCH THEY DELIGHT ME.

(I had also forgotten how hot it is when Nate is stumbling around in the Himalayas, slowly bleeding to death. I'm an awful, awful person.)

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Aw! I play almost no video games, but I know what you mean. It's like "If they're such sweet people, shouldn't they be more hesitant about killing, or at least killing people?" (It's a bit difference when the enemy is a zombie or non-sentient alien or demon or something.)

...are the games definitive on the "punched a guy to death" thing, or could it be interpreted as punching them into unconsciousness?

It could be interpreted as punching people into unconsciousness, I suppose! I might start thinking of it that way. But you're usually shooting people in Uncharted, which is less ambiguous, and Nate will still make ridiculous quips then.

Yeah, the shooting is less easy to handwave.

The same question could arise with any medium, really. Look at just about every action movie that involves lots of guns and explosions (arguably, the style that Uncharted was modeled off of). Not a single character in those movies questions it either, and yet no one bats an eye at the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or in a more modern approach, Vin Diesel or Paul Walker kill lots of people and don't really question it. I think for that "style" of movie or game, it is more a suspension of disbelief for us in moments like that. Yes, if we are critical, it does seem weird that he doesn't have an ounce of reserve when he's murdering hundreds of humans. Or in Final Fantasy when some of the enemies are in fact, soldiers.

We also never are told (at least that I remember) how long he's been doing that. We know that people slowly become desensitized to things that they have to do. Maybe he's already had his breakdown of "OH GOD WHY AM I DOING THIS WHAT PURPOSE" and now he's all "Meh, part of the job." We accept that in games like Call of Duty, we are soldiers and therefore killing the opponents is justified in that manner, yet for Drake who has no military background (that I know of) it is looked at as if he was just placed into this scenario by happenstance. Moreso, Nathan could also be looking at it from how I approach the situation (which is really how I approach all of these style of games): these people are shooting at me and trying to kill me for the thing that I am after; it belongs to neither of us, but they would kill me to get it so I can either a) fight back, or b) run away. Frankly, a story about Nathan who throws his arms into the air when he gets shot at and says "FUCK THIS" and runs doesn't seem quite as entertaining. :)

This topic was actually brought up on Sunday, and it's a really good one, no doubt. But it's hard to push real life scenarios on a game that is created to be over the top. Now, if you want a game that really brings these types of feelings into the mix, I HIGHLY recommend Heavy Rain/Beyond: Two Souls. Quantic Dream has always had a knack for making a game and characters where real personalities and thought processes are involved. For those of you who have played, there are a lot of instances where your morals are questioned, but the one I am specifically referring to is The Shark trial in Heavy Rain.

Edited (lol wordz :E) 2014-01-21 16:26 (UTC)

That's an excellent point about action films! I don't watch many, so it hadn't occurred to me that they and action games share the same 'look, let's just accept for the purposes of this story that killing a load of people isn't a big moral issue' attitude. I don't think that's necessarily a fault with the action genre; it's not really much weirder than Nate's ridiculous climbing ability. Plausibility and real-world morality are questions you're asked to set aside for a while for the sake of enjoying the story. It's just slightly disconcerting to jump back into that world after something like The Last of Us, which looks on the surface very like Uncharted but doesn't let its characters shake off moral questions so easily (and is an excellent game, incidentally; if you haven't played it yet, I recommend it).

Frankly, a story about Nathan who throws his arms into the air when he gets shot at and says "FUCK THIS" and runs doesn't seem quite as entertaining.

Perhaps the oddest thing is that the Nathan Drake who comes across in the story sections does sort of seem like the kind of guy who throws his arms into the air and says 'FUCK THIS' and runs when he gets shot at. The first time he really caught my interest was about midway through the first game, when he went 'look, this is ridiculous, it's far too dangerous, let's just get out of here' and Elena had to persuade him to keep going. It was good to know that he wasn't all shooting and bluster.

No I don't believe it is any fault at all. That action and suspense is what draws us to the genre; just as we are drawn to fire and dragons in fantasy, and resurrection and aliens in sci-fi. A "what if" kind of scenario where the police never seem to catch up, and morality isn't an issue when it's dog-eat-dog.

I definitely understand what you mean by The Last of Us though. I have not played through it in its entirety, but I believe you are kind of thrust into that scenario fairly early in the game, if I'm not mistaken. It's on my list of "one days." :D

Haha, well I was actually referring to the very beginning of the story (like in Uncharted, before they even get off the boat in the prologue). Boat, gunfire, this is how to play... wait what? Where's Drake going? The end. XP

I kind of love the dissonance in the Uncharted games, actually! Because I am a horrible person and like characters who are very nice in some respects and completely awful in others, and feel like Nate and Sully are the sort who, depending on their mood and potential for profit, will totally pat you on the back and then throw you over a cliff to further their own ends. Like, I sort of imagine that they write off the killing of eight million mercenaries as self-defense, especially considering that (if I'm remembering correctly) in the museum heist at the beginning of Uncharted 2, Nate doesn't want to kill any unarmed guards? Although it's possible he's more concerned with ending up in a Turkish prison than with hurting anyone.

I pretty much interpret Nate and Sully as having pretty faulty moral compasses, and I do feel like the games comment on that. I don't think they'd, you know, kill somebody in cold blood, but certainly when someone else tries to kill them they're not much for mercy.

I am super, super bothered though by stories where a character makes a really big fuss about not killing people and then rampages through a town recklessly destroying stuff in a way that realistically could cause a lot of casualties. It drove me crazy in The Dark Knight because Batman is supposed to be totally not okay with killing people but there's a bit where he causes like eighty car accidents while driving around in his giant bat tank.

And FFVIII always gets me with this, too! The field exam is supposed to be Zell and Squall's first real mission, but nobody freaks out about killing a bunch of soldiers with there bare hands. At the very least I would expect Squall to brood about it at length.

Because I am a horrible person and like characters who are very nice in some respects and completely awful in others

I also like these sorts of characters! I suppose I'm troubled by all this mercenary-killing because I'm controlling Nathan Drake, so he's nice in the cutscenes and awful when I have a hand in his actions. IT'S WEIRD.

in the museum heist at the beginning of Uncharted 2, Nate doesn't want to kill any unarmed guards?

True! Or at least he reacts badly when Flynn tries to hand him a gun, then settles down when he's told it just fires tranquilliser darts. I don't think Turkish prisons generally go 'you can't kill museum guards, but shooting them unconscious and robbing the museum is fine', so presumably that was indeed a moral objection.

I pretty much interpret Nate and Sully as having pretty faulty moral compasses, and I do feel like the games comment on that.

I think you're right, actually. Lazarević brings it up at the end of Uncharted 2, after THE TERRIBLE FINAL BOSS FIGHT I HATE: 'How many men have you killed? How many just today?' So I suppose the game doesn't expect us to completely ignore all the murdering or pretend that for story purposes it doesn't actually happen; it just doesn't want us to think about it too hard.

Absolutely agreed on FFVIII. I think fighting Galbadian soldiers was the first thing that ever made me go 'hang on, what... what am I doing?' in a videogame.

Have you watched the Last of Us video I linked up there, incidentally? You definitely should.

he's nice in the cutscenes and awful when I have a hand in his actions.

Hang on, you mean when you're playing you haven't just been repeatedly tapping the L3 and R3 buttons to make friends and shake hands? You've actually been shooting everyone?

Oh, dear.

I have watched at the Last of Us video and I am so, so impressed with the acting skills on display.

DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT. (I suppose all my punching could be interpreted as an overly vigorous attempt at a handshake.)

THAT IS ALL ZELL IS TRYING TO DO. HE JUST WANTS TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE SOLDIERS. He's just... very enthusiastic about it.

Metal Gear Solid 3 actually gives you a tranq gun and the option to get through almost the entire game without killing anyone (except the bosses). There's a fantastic bit where (spoilers ahead, though I feel like if you were going to play the game, you'd have done it by now) Snake, after falling off a bridge, hallucinates a long walk down a burning river, haunted by the ghosts of every single person he's killed over the course of the game. Depending on how you've played the game to that point, it can be either a very short or a very, very long sequence.

I haven't played Uncharted, but your explanation of sudonarrative dissonance is brilliant. I've encountered the same thing across other games, and it's always a mixture of incredibly funny and deeply unnerving when it happens.

'We need to show the Sanctum that being l'Cie doesn't make us monsters!' Yes, that might be easier if you hadn't killed fifty of their soldiers. It's strange that this never really hit me before I played The Last of Us, but seeing one's murderous actions treated with appropriate gravity makes 'la la la kill all these people it's fine' seem deeply weird in retrospect.

I thought it was depicted fairly well in this parody comic (http://obstinatemelon.deviantart.com/art/Final-Fantasy-7-Page109-176843760) of FFVII (kind of NSFW, animals humping), where Kunsel appears as one of the SOLDIERs that Avalanche fight in the Shinra building ... and consequently gets his head cut off in the next page (http://obstinatemelon.deviantart.com/art/Final-Fantasy-7-Page110-177105884).

Thinking that you're killing actual people is weird. Thinking that those could be characters you know is downright horrifying.

Edited 2014-01-22 19:45 (UTC)

This is so weird, I've literally just finished the first Uncharted game (and am now going to jump on the sequels like they're gold dust) and loved it, but did think that the sheer number of people you gunned down with no acknowledgement was pretty crazy. Clearly I need to play these other games too (I just got a PS3 at Christmas, so I'm on the lookout for recs, so far I have played Uncharted, Flower and Journey, which I loved, and Little Big Planet 2, which I didn't... XD

(Long time no natter! *smish*)

It's been ages! Hello!

AND I AM SO EXCITED THAT YOU'RE PLAYING UNCHARTED. I really hope you enjoy the sequels! The original Uncharted is a solid enough game, but I love Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 much, much more. (If you have a PS3, you should definitely play The Last of Us. And I think you'd enjoy Portal 2. And Red Dead Redemption is also excellent. But, yes, jump on those Uncharted sequels first.)

(If you have any thoughts about the Uncharted games you'd like to express, incidentally, I would be extremely open to hearing them!)

Edited 2014-01-21 22:26 (UTC)

I haven't commented here in about ten thousand billion years, the perils of switching to Dreamwidths and plurks and tumblrs and such, but I do still look in fairly regularly because darn it if you don't always have such entertaining posts. The one you made recently concerning interpretations (and what does or does not qualify as a misrepresentation) was really great, and I almost commented but thought 'it's been a long time, that might be awkward!', and then you mentioned that you're playing Radiant Historia and THAT'S exciting because I personally think it's a really charming game with a lot of great features, and now THIS post and fine, darn it, I will leave a comment.

My comment is this! I completely agree with regards to that dissonance between gameplay and narrative (ludonarrative dissonance is a term I will have to remember!), and it's something I've looked at when replaying Final Fantasy games. Back in Final Fantasy VII, when you defeat a human enemy they just fade out in that red polygon haze the same way that any monster enemy would. But I think it's specifically from VIII onwards that it starts to get more ambiguous, with both human and monster units having animations consistent with falling down, collapsing, or. you know. otherwise dying.

It's not always clear exactly what that means for the humans, though! But it's definitely worth noting that in Final Fantasy X, when you defeat Guado while fleeing the Macalania Temple and such, your enemies are depicted as falling down and then fading from the field. No pyreflies are shown, which I absolutely take to mean that you are defeating these humanoids rather than outright killing them. It's not particularly hard to imagine the cast of Final Fantasy VIII killing Galbadian soldiers and such, being mercenaries and so forth, but I'd be inclined to believe leniency of the Final Fantasy IX cast as well, particularly when it comes to fighting Alexandrian soldiers and the like. But who knows! I do not remember the particulars of XIII to try and make a guess there, alas...

ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU ARE WELL, THAT IS MY COMMENT.

I don't know what about this entry is drawing out the people I haven't heard from in ten thousand billion years, but I am delighted. Hello! I've missed you!

But it's definitely worth noting that in Final Fantasy X, when you defeat Guado while fleeing the Macalania Temple and such, your enemies are depicted as falling down and then fading from the field. No pyreflies are shown, which I absolutely take to mean that you are defeating these humanoids rather than outright killing them.

That's a very interesting point! Come to think of it, though, don't humans and Guado only turn into pyreflies when they're sent? Fiends dissolve into pyreflies on death because they were formed of pyreflies to begin with. I, er, think. It's been a while since I last played Final Fantasy X.

Of course, even if you are killing the humanoid enemies, they may well go on to do that thing where they trot around after death for decades, totally fine. I don't understand Spira.

I hope things are going well for you! And I think I've now added you on Dreamwidth, but it's possible I've just added a total stranger. WE'LL SEE.

Oh no, that's correct, isn't it! About pyreflies, that is. So it might very well be that you are killing them after all, ahhh, all my careful consideration is foiled again hahaha. But no, of course you're right, Seymour didn't have any pyreflies there either and he was most certainly dead...

SO I HAVE REALLY CONTRIBUTED NOTHING AT ALL, but yes! The person you added on Dreamwidth was indeed myself, although I have to admit I don't really update a great deal on either journal website these days. If I were to update it'd be more likely there, though, so! I will gladly add you in return \o\!

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That's Not For You To Decide.

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