Self-Loathing Simulator 2020.

[rionaleonhart]

Has a videogame ever made you feel like a bad person? Or, to broaden the question for the non-players amongst us, has a work of fiction ever made you feel like a bad person?

I've wanted to make this entry for a while, but I've been dragging my feet on it. I've mainly been reluctant to type up my own example, because, uh, you'll never believe this, but thinking about it makes me feel like a bad person.

My personal example of a videogame making me feel personally awful comes from Omori. Heads-up: there's discussion of animal harm and suicide below the cut. This takes place within a dream sequence in a videogame, though, so it's doubly removed from reality; no people or animals are harmed either in the real world or in the 'reality' of the game.



In a late dream sequence in Omori, I found myself in a room. In the centre of the room was Mewo, the family cat, strapped to a table. Next to me was an anthromorphic cat in a butler's outfit, henceforth 'the butler'.

I spoke to the butler. All the butler would say was 'Mewo has been very, very bad.'

I examined Mewo.

'Mewo stares at you. She does not know what is happening,' the game's narration informed me. 'Do you want to cut open Mewo?'

I was given the options 'yes' and 'no'. I selected 'no'. I did not want to cut open Mewo.

I looked for a way out of the room.

There was no way out.

I spoke to the butler again. It was the same thing: 'Mewo has been very, very bad.'

I examined Mewo. The game asked me again if I wanted to cut her open. I said no.

I had another look around for exits.

Okay. I could see where this was going. Obviously the only way to get out of the room was to harm the cat. Fine. If I wasn't going to be able to progress with the game otherwise, I was just going to have to do it.

I braced myself and examined Mewo. Did I want to cut Mewo open? I said yes.

The game asked me again. 'Mewo stares at you. She tilts her head out of curiosity. Do you want to cut open Mewo?'

I lost my nerve and said no.

After a moment, I gritted my teeth and went back to say yes. It was the only way to progress, after all, and I wanted to see the rest of the game.

The game asked me over and over again, while Mewo became increasingly distressed, whether I wanted to cut her open, and I said yes every time.

I hated this. But I didn't have a choice. It was the game. It wasn't me. This was the only way to carry on, so I was just going to grit my teeth and do it.

'Do you want to cut open Mewo?'

Yes. Yes. Yes, I want to cut open Mewo. Just get on with it.

It was done, in the end. I examined Mewo's body, but all I got was the message 'You cut open Mewo.'

I looked for an exit. There still wasn't one.

I spoke to the butler.

'Waiting for something to happen?' the butler asked. 'If you want a way out, there always is one... but...'

Shit! Shit shit shit.

I'd seen that message before. It appeared on occasions when you had the option to open the menu and stab yourself, kicking yourself out of your dream. I checked the menu and, sure enough, the 'stab' option was there.

This wasn't a room you got out of by cutting the cat open. This was a room you got out of by stabbing yourself.

I didn't have to harm Mewo.

I'd persuaded myself that I had to do this, that it was the only way. I'd cut her open, blaming the game design for it the entire time. I had to do it.

But I didn't have to do it. It didn't achieve anything at all. I just hadn't looked hard enough for alternatives, and that whole horrible sequence was for nothing.

I reloaded my last save immediately, so I could redo that room and leave without hurting the cat. But I was intensely conscious that I had hurt her, that I was just papering over that fact. What if I'd mistakenly persuaded myself I had to do something terrible that I couldn't then undo?

(Huh. I think writing this up has helped me truly understand the thematic significance of that scene.)

I had trouble sleeping the night after playing through this sequence. I don't think it would have hit me nearly as hard if it actually had been unavoidable. But the realisation that it could have been avoided, that I just failed to avoid it: that's what really made it stick in my mind.



Wow, I did not enjoy typing that out. Please share your own stories of guilt-inducing moments in fiction, and we can feel bad about ourselves together.

Comments

[juushika]

My partner replayed Spec Ops: The Line a few months ago, on occasion of it being removed from sale on account of expired music licensing, so I'm bring it up even though it's already popped up in comments. A lot of games about "forced to do terrible things to survive" (The Last of Us Part I, A Plague Tale) manage to feel justified within the confines of a fictional narrative, namely: game pacing makes for constant onslaught of enemy attacks that have to be completed to progress, so the part when the player discovers that the enemy was also forced to do terrible things to survive is undermined the whole thing where there were <5 of Team Me versus 23408234023823 of Team Them; even if there's no social commentary, it implicitly creates a power imbalance that erases the protagonist's/player's guilt.

So what makes Spec Ops: The Line so remarkable, other than basically everything, is how intentionally it refuses to use game mechanics to make the same justifications. Game pacing still makes for a constant onslaught of etc., that is how most game loops work, and the protagonist/player acclimates in the same way to the obviously awful things they're doing. Micro moral choices exist, but the macro moral choice of war has been made by the setting, the narrative, the existence of war: a solider cannot chose not to fight. But the power dynamic is explicit and inverted in a way that confronts assumptions of the macro narrative: these people (protagonist specifically, US military in general) repeatedly inserted themselves into a situation where they were not wanted to exert power and commit war crimes, full stop. Protagonist and player acclimatizing to violence becomes a source of horror rather than a convenience that makes the game loop possible. The albeit-tropey ending makes the entire game into a macro moral choice that does indeed exist: the decision to participate in the first place.

I think it's meaningful that your example & lots of comments are video game examples. Partially, obvs, it's the initial question itself. Nonetheless. Like apiphile, I'm also super susceptible to the Protagonist Effect, but I can't think of any books where even that tendency made me feel gross for rooting for a shitty PoV. The interactive element of games can create complicity & culpability in a way unique from non-interactive media.

[rionaleonhart]

From all I've heard of Spec Ops: The Line, it sounds like a really interesting game, and I'm not surprised that it has come up multiple times in these comments. I think I first looked into it because I saw someone feeling terrible for playing it, and I was fascinated by how a game could inspire those feelings.

Micro moral choices exist, but the macro moral choice of war has been made by the setting, the narrative, the existence of war: a solider cannot chose not to fight.

I love your phrasing here.

I included a general 'fiction' version of the question because I didn't want to exclude non-gamers from the discussion, but also because I was curious about whether other forms of fiction were really capable of inducing guilt in the way games can. I found it hard to think of examples from any other medium, so it was interesting to see apiphile's comment!