Ask Lemmy

I love how some people criticize Kojima for beating you over the head with unsubtle themes, but then the other half of people are like "this game made no sense so I deliver packages and then people talk about ropes a lot and why are there hands everywhere"

Edit: just adding this on, of course Kojima is trying to reach as many people as possible with his art, even those with poor media literacy. But it only just occurred to me how that in itself is so reminiscent of Sam pushing to connect people, even the ones who are remote or obstinate.

I agree, Rings of Power is great! As someone who has read and watched LotR, but not the Silmarillion, I found it a nice step into the lore. I found a lot of it matches up decently with the appendices of LotR, even if the timeline isn't accurate.

It took me a while, but I ended up really enjoying Death Stranding. One of the things that made it click for me was that I watched a video essay on a different game that used the playwright Bertholt Brecht's V-effect as an analytical frame.

My rough understanding of it is that Brecht wanted to break the fourth wall and prevent audiences from identifying too heavily with characters, enabling them to better engage with the themes of the play; for example, if audiences end up identifying with a character who is a relatable asshole, then they might be less inclined to critically understand this character and the systems that facilitate their assholery.

Death Stranding invokes this with its absurd characters and setting. I never stopped finding it jarring when you have such silly character names and plots. This meant that for my first few hours of playing, I felt like I didn't "get it", and it seems like this is a fairly common reaction. However, this sense of "I don't get it" is interesting because of how it primes you to search for something to get — some larger point that Kojima is trying to make with the game. If nothing else, I appreciate games and other media that have something to say, even if I struggle to grasp that message.

If I had to distill things down, I think the most prominent theme I understood was "Play is an essential component of human wellness, and it has tremendous capacity to facilitate building human connection". I enjoyed how this was explored narratively through Sam's interactions with various characters, but also through ludic means via the player interacting with other player build structures (I really enjoyed getting so many thumbs up for all the roads I built). Death Stranding sometimes feels pretentious, but I remember thinking "what's more pretentious: the game that's trying (and possibly failing, depending on perspective) hard to say something larger, or the player who regards the game with disdain". Ultimately, I feel that the potential pretentiousness is neutralised by how earnest it is. Yes, it's a very silly game, but that's sort of the point.

Regarding Rings of Power, I absolutely hated the show, which sounds like a stronger opinion than what you hold. However, I completely agree that the discourse around the show is a trash fire of bad faith criticism that makes it impossible to express legitimate dislike of the show that's based in honesty.