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4 - Red Dead Redemption 2: Arthur Morgan, Ivan Ilyich & Memento Mori · Mythic Mind Games

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic mind Games, where we discuss
0:06
Speaker 1: video games through the lens of the Christian humanities. I'm
0:09
Speaker 1: doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. How
0:20
Speaker 1: To partners recently have been playing through Red Dead Redemption
0:24
Speaker 1: two as I continue getting my reacquaintance with video games.
0:30
Speaker 1: As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I took a long break,
0:33
Speaker 1: I mean like a decade or so when I really
0:35
Speaker 1: didn't play much of anything, as I just well, I
0:39
Speaker 1: was engaged with other things, right, I'm engaged with career
0:41
Speaker 1: or family, education, all sorts of stuff, and so I
0:44
Speaker 1: really just didn't play video games. But as I've started
0:47
Speaker 1: to step back into this arena, minding them for the
0:50
Speaker 1: wisdom that they hold and just engaging with what I
0:55
Speaker 1: think is potentially a productive avenue of enchantment, I decided
0:59
Speaker 1: that one of the first new games, this is not
1:02
Speaker 1: really new, I guess by by today's standards, but it's
1:04
Speaker 1: new to me. One of the newer games that I
1:07
Speaker 1: wanted to check out was Red Dead Redemption two. You know,
1:10
Speaker 1: I've seen the number of clips here and there. I've
1:14
Speaker 1: I'm drawn in by the esthetic of the wild West.
1:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the cowboys are like the quintessential
1:21
Speaker 1: American folk story. I mean, this is this is our mythology. Mean,
1:25
Speaker 1: it's a better way of saying it that the Europeans
1:28
Speaker 1: have their Nights and Americans have their cowboys. And so
1:30
Speaker 1: there's just there's just something about this that connects to
1:33
Speaker 1: with me on a deep level. And so I played
1:35
Speaker 1: Red Dead Redemption two, absolutely incredible game. If you haven't
1:39
Speaker 1: played it, I strongly recommend it you. I know, I
1:42
Speaker 1: have not played the first Red Dead Redemption yet, although
1:46
Speaker 1: I did play Red Dead Revolver way back in the day,
1:48
Speaker 1: which was the kind of spiritual precursor to the series now.
1:53
Speaker 1: But the second one is a prequel. And so while
1:55
Speaker 1: I understand that there's probably some enrichments and benefit that
1:59
Speaker 1: comes through playing the first one first, it's not absolutely necessary.
2:03
Speaker 1: At least that's what I was told and that's certainly
2:04
Speaker 1: what I've experienced. It's it's a great story as it
2:07
Speaker 1: stands alone, and eventually I'll make it to the first
2:09
Speaker 1: one as well. Well. I Like I said, I was
2:13
Speaker 1: blown away by this game. One thing is just it's fun,
2:16
Speaker 1: It's enchanting. I mean, there's just so much that comes
2:19
Speaker 1: out of just exploring the wilderness, exploring the towns. You know,
2:24
Speaker 1: whether you're you're you choose to take an honorable path
2:27
Speaker 1: and you know, be something of a reforming cowboy, or
2:31
Speaker 1: you play the role of just the dishonorable, hard edged outlaw.
2:36
Speaker 1: Like either way it's fun. But I definitely came to
2:39
Speaker 1: find that the honorable path is definitely more satisfying. And
2:45
Speaker 1: so that's how I decided to play the games, how
2:47
Speaker 1: I decided to beat the game. Since then, I've also
2:49
Speaker 1: fiddled around a little bit being more of just a
2:52
Speaker 1: straight out outlaw, you know, Robin Train's Robin Stores, and
2:56
Speaker 1: I've definitely come to find that the honorable path is
2:59
Speaker 1: more satisfying. Even though the dishonorable path is more fun,
3:03
Speaker 1: you know, it's fund of rob trains and whatnot. Don't
3:05
Speaker 1: don't take that out of context of this particular focus.
3:10
Speaker 1: But I knew that this was a game that I
3:13
Speaker 1: wanted to discuss with you, and this is gonna be
3:16
Speaker 1: a two parter, and so in this episode is just
3:19
Speaker 1: me and I want to get into what I believe
3:23
Speaker 1: are some of the most heartening as well as heartbreaking
3:27
Speaker 1: elements of the story, and in particular, I want to
3:30
Speaker 1: be discussing the the role that Arthur Morgan plays or
3:34
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan being the main protagonist that your character, and
3:38
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about the role of Arthur
3:40
Speaker 1: Morgan in relation with Tolstoy Short story the Death of
3:43
Speaker 1: evan Iliach. And warning right now there will be spoilers
3:48
Speaker 1: for both the game as well as Tolstoy story in
3:50
Speaker 1: this episode, but it's a you can make of that
3:55
Speaker 1: what you will. But I do think that on the
3:58
Speaker 1: on the main Mythic Mind podcast some point down the road,
4:01
Speaker 1: maybe sooner Aroun then later, I'm not not really sure,
4:03
Speaker 1: but we've been talking about having an episode on the
4:06
Speaker 1: death of evon Ilioch, who are on the main Mythic
4:08
Speaker 1: Mind podcast. Episode for now, I'm really just going to
4:11
Speaker 1: lay out the major outline of the story as a
4:14
Speaker 1: refresher or if you've not read it before, and then
4:18
Speaker 1: I just want to draw on some comparisons here between
4:20
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan and the titular character of Tolstoy Short story,
4:24
Speaker 1: evon Iliitch. Now, the death of evon Iliitch begins after
4:29
Speaker 1: the death of evon Iliach in the first chapter. It's
4:32
Speaker 1: like a kind of like a prologue where you have
4:35
Speaker 1: some of evon Ilitch's acquaintances, some of his colleagues at
4:39
Speaker 1: the courthouse. You know, he works in law. They all
4:43
Speaker 1: work in law. And they read in the newspaper that
4:45
Speaker 1: evon Iliitch has died, and they don't break into tears,
4:50
Speaker 1: that they don't start mourning, and they say some of
4:54
Speaker 1: the niceties that you might say when somebody you learn
4:58
Speaker 1: that someone you know dies, but they quickly move on
5:00
Speaker 1: to what this really means for them practically in regards
5:06
Speaker 1: to their career, like what it means for them financially,
5:08
Speaker 1: what it means for them positionally, And so they almost
5:12
Speaker 1: instantly moved to, oh, it's a shame that he died too, now,
5:16
Speaker 1: so you're going to get this promotion now you can
5:18
Speaker 1: take his spot. I'm going to take his spot, And
5:21
Speaker 1: so that they're more concerned with how is this going
5:24
Speaker 1: to affect me? How's this going to affect my career
5:27
Speaker 1: than they are concerned about the death of ivan Ilyitch.
5:31
Speaker 1: In fact, even Pyodor Ivanovitch, who is the closest to
5:35
Speaker 1: a friend that evan Iliach has, like even he is
5:38
Speaker 1: just kind of cracking jokes and he's not deeply moved
5:42
Speaker 1: and we're told that they all had the same thought,
5:46
Speaker 1: that none of them expressed it, but they all have
5:48
Speaker 1: this thought somewhere. Maybe it was thought consciously, maybe subconsciously,
5:51
Speaker 1: but they all have this thought that it was ivan
5:54
Speaker 1: Ilyitch who was dead and not me. And so you
5:58
Speaker 1: have all these people, they have their their good careers
6:02
Speaker 1: that they're they're you know, financially stable, they are moving
6:06
Speaker 1: up now in the world, right that a number of
6:08
Speaker 1: them are going to be getting promotioned with the death
6:11
Speaker 1: of ivan Iliach. But when it comes to the existential
6:14
Speaker 1: question of what does it all mean relative to the
6:17
Speaker 1: fact that just like evan Iliach, I too am going
6:21
Speaker 1: to die, that's just not something that they're willing to
6:25
Speaker 1: come to terms with, and so they keep shielding themselves
6:29
Speaker 1: from that reality. Is he who died, not me? This
6:31
Speaker 1: death has nothing to do with me, His mortality has
6:34
Speaker 1: nothing to do with my own. Well, eventually they make
6:37
Speaker 1: their way over to the funeral service and they pay
6:41
Speaker 1: respects to his wife, the widow, Proscobia Perovna, and even
6:45
Speaker 1: then his widow, Proscobia Perovna, she she calls Pyotr Ivanovitch
6:50
Speaker 1: over for a secret meeting, not secret private meeting, that's
6:54
Speaker 1: that's what I'm looking for. They have this private meeting
6:57
Speaker 1: and they both just as in the kind of conversation
7:01
Speaker 1: that you would expect that ivan Ilyitch's friend and widow
7:04
Speaker 1: would have, and so they're just chatting. Oh, it's such
7:07
Speaker 1: a shame. Peter Ivanovitch says, did ivan Iliitch suffer at
7:13
Speaker 1: the end? And Proskoby Federovna says, well, yes, he suffered.
7:18
Speaker 1: That he was just screaming incessantly for three days at
7:21
Speaker 1: the end. And so she is far more concerned with
7:26
Speaker 1: her own inconvenience that she faced in light of the
7:29
Speaker 1: death of her husband than she is concerned with the
7:32
Speaker 1: death of her husband. He was a nuisance to her,
7:35
Speaker 1: and so just as they are first and foremost, his
7:38
Speaker 1: friends are first and foremost concerned with just their own
7:43
Speaker 1: earthly material well being, so too is she. Like she
7:47
Speaker 1: obviously did not care very deeply for her husband. She's
7:50
Speaker 1: kind of relieved that he's gone, but she can't say
7:52
Speaker 1: that because she feels like she's bound by social propriety
7:56
Speaker 1: to mourn and to say certain things, just as Peter
8:00
Speaker 1: Vanovitch is saying certain things, but none of them. It's
8:03
Speaker 1: all on the surface. It doesn't come from the heart.
8:05
Speaker 1: They're not having a real conversation with each other, and
8:07
Speaker 1: in fact, we eventually find out through the course of
8:09
Speaker 1: this phone new conversation that the only reason why Proscobia
8:14
Speaker 1: Federovna is trying to talk to Peter Vanovitch is because
8:16
Speaker 1: she is hoping that Peter Vanovitch can get more money
8:19
Speaker 1: out of the government pension for her. And so Jess says,
8:22
Speaker 1: with his friends, she's concerned about what is this going
8:25
Speaker 1: to mean for me materially, And as soon as Peter
8:27
Speaker 1: Vanovitch says yeah, that's probably not gonna happen, Proscoby Federovna says, okay,
8:32
Speaker 1: well then I better go and they just leave. And
8:34
Speaker 1: so just none of that. Neither of them are having
8:37
Speaker 1: a real conversation with a person. They're both just engaging
8:40
Speaker 1: in social propriety that's meant to cover up their self centeredness. Well,
8:43
Speaker 1: toward the end of this first chapter, you have Peter
8:46
Speaker 1: Vanovitch waiting for a car outside and he's standing there
8:50
Speaker 1: next to ivan Ilyitch's butler, a guy named Garrison. Now
8:54
Speaker 1: Garrison who is really the only authentic person for the
9:00
Speaker 1: majority of the story that he says something pretty profound.
9:06
Speaker 1: Peter Vanovitch says, you know, it's a terrible business about
9:08
Speaker 1: evan Iliys dying, and Garrison says, basically, it's going to
9:12
Speaker 1: happen all of us. This is God's will, and so
9:15
Speaker 1: he just he recognizes the inevitability of death. He has
9:19
Speaker 1: this momentum moory idea that even though of all the
9:22
Speaker 1: main characters and in the story, Garrison is the lowest station,
9:27
Speaker 1: he is the only one who has actually come to
9:29
Speaker 1: terms with this mortality. He is the only one who's
9:32
Speaker 1: living with purpose. And so we come to find that
9:35
Speaker 1: his life, as lowly as it may be, is far
9:38
Speaker 1: far more meaningful than these upper middle class lawyers and
9:42
Speaker 1: government workers. But after Garrison makes this proclamation about the
9:46
Speaker 1: inevitability of our mortality, Peter Vanovitch just doesn't really have
9:50
Speaker 1: anything saying. He just leaves right because he's trying to
9:53
Speaker 1: avoid this reality. In fact, just a little bit ago
9:55
Speaker 1: at the scene, he's looking at the body, he's looking
9:58
Speaker 1: at the corpse of Ivan Ilyitch, and he starts to
10:02
Speaker 1: just kind of panic because he's starting is something's bubbling
10:05
Speaker 1: up within him. He's starting to look in the face
10:08
Speaker 1: of mortality. Tolstoy tells us that that the body was
10:13
Speaker 1: giving the message to Pyotr Ivanovitch that dead bodies always
10:17
Speaker 1: give right namely that you two will die but were
10:21
Speaker 1: But instead of taking that message to heart, Pyotr Ivanovitch says, like,
10:25
Speaker 1: that's terribly inappropriate, and then he just reminds himself, oh wait,
10:29
Speaker 1: ivan Iliach, who's dead. It's not me, And so he
10:32
Speaker 1: just keeps fleeing from this reality where if he can,
10:34
Speaker 1: Garisim is the only person who is a person who
10:37
Speaker 1: recognizes people as people well, and then we start to
10:41
Speaker 1: get a backstory of ivan Ilyitch ended up point. We're
10:43
Speaker 1: going to work our way up for the rest of
10:44
Speaker 1: the short story up to the death of ivan Ilyitch. So,
10:48
Speaker 1: ivan Ilyitch, by all estimations, was a mediocre guy. I mean,
10:53
Speaker 1: he was a middle child. His older brother is very successful,
10:56
Speaker 1: his younger brother is a deadbee bum, and so he's
10:59
Speaker 1: right in the middle. He got his first job in
11:04
Speaker 1: law by essentially his father got him the job. And
11:09
Speaker 1: so this is the guy who really doesn't have a
11:10
Speaker 1: lot of agency. And in fact, if you've read that
11:12
Speaker 1: Hideous Strength, I see a lot of common ground between
11:16
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyitch and Mark stutick I strongly recommend reading those
11:20
Speaker 1: books side by side. And so Evan Iliach he has
11:23
Speaker 1: a decent job. Eventually as he's just climbing the social ladder,
11:29
Speaker 1: he you know, he's engaged in all these society parties,
11:32
Speaker 1: and he meets this woman named Proscobia Federovna, now Proscovia Federovna,
11:37
Speaker 1: we're told was moderately attractive, she had a decent amount
11:40
Speaker 1: of money, and she liked Ivon Iliitch and that's enough
11:44
Speaker 1: reason for Evan Eliage to get married. And in fact,
11:45
Speaker 1: that's basically a tool toy let it out that she
11:48
Speaker 1: had this standing, she liked him well enough, and so
11:51
Speaker 1: they got married, and then which kind of move on
11:53
Speaker 1: from there. And so obviously Evan Iliach didn't love her.
11:56
Speaker 1: He didn't even ever really commit himself to her. It
11:59
Speaker 1: was just this is the next thing that I do
12:02
Speaker 1: as a member of society. It's time for him to
12:04
Speaker 1: get married. And so he gets married, and at first
12:07
Speaker 1: things seem to be going okay, And that's because they're
12:10
Speaker 1: both able to keep living basically as they were before.
12:13
Speaker 1: I mean, when you get married before having kids, there's
12:17
Speaker 1: only but so much life change happening. Now, Okay, don't
12:20
Speaker 1: misunderstand me. I should be careful when I say that
12:23
Speaker 1: that obviously there is a major life change to get married,
12:27
Speaker 1: and that's obviously the case. But at the same time,
12:30
Speaker 1: when you don't have kids, like there are only but
12:33
Speaker 1: so many responsibilities that you have as a family, you
12:37
Speaker 1: can still for the most part, I keep doing the
12:40
Speaker 1: things that you want to do, right, just do them together.
12:43
Speaker 1: But eventually Proskoviy Perovna gets pregnant and at this point
12:47
Speaker 1: their marriage really starts to go downhill because now Ivan
12:50
Speaker 1: Ilyitch has some real responsibilities and this is not somebody
12:54
Speaker 1: who's been willing or able to take responsibilities. And so
12:59
Speaker 1: he basically just continues doing the things he wants to do,
13:01
Speaker 1: goes all the society parties, hangs out with his friends
13:04
Speaker 1: all hours, you know, works all the time. He really
13:07
Speaker 1: doesn't spend any time at home. Well, Prascovia Federovna, especially
13:10
Speaker 1: as the pregnancy continues, she spends more and more time
13:13
Speaker 1: at home and you know, she's not feeling well. They
13:15
Speaker 1: get in a lot of fights and he just thinks
13:17
Speaker 1: that she just you know, being a nag, and she
13:20
Speaker 1: thinks that he doesn't care about her, which is largely true,
13:24
Speaker 1: and so this is just begins, I mean the really
13:28
Speaker 1: the functional end of their relationship. I mean that they
13:30
Speaker 1: continue together, but they're just always at each other's throats.
13:34
Speaker 1: They never understand each other. And this is in large
13:37
Speaker 1: part I mean, don't get me wrong, She's no heroin here, Like,
13:40
Speaker 1: she's got her own problems. But the same time, it's
13:44
Speaker 1: far easier for him to be sympathetic to Proscoya Federovna
13:47
Speaker 1: because he is such a bad husband and father that
13:52
Speaker 1: it's natural that resentment would grow in her as they
13:55
Speaker 1: continue down this path. Now, that doesn't justify her. She
14:00
Speaker 1: is not going to turn out to be an incredible
14:02
Speaker 1: wife for her own sake. But again, like, I have
14:05
Speaker 1: more sympathy for her because I get it, even if
14:07
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily excusable. And so she continues to get
14:11
Speaker 1: just embittered toward him, and then he just you know,
14:13
Speaker 1: return turns around by getting more invested in work and
14:17
Speaker 1: spending less time at home, and eventually he decides he
14:20
Speaker 1: needs to make more money, and eventually he gets the
14:22
Speaker 1: job alongside Peter Vanovitch in Gang. And at one point
14:26
Speaker 1: when he's setting things up in his new apartment, he's
14:31
Speaker 1: decorating everything to meet the aesthetics of the upper middle class,
14:34
Speaker 1: you know, those who want to look far more wealthy
14:37
Speaker 1: than the actually are. And so, again, lacking agency but
14:42
Speaker 1: wanting to be noticed, he decorates his house just like
14:45
Speaker 1: everyone else. Right, in trying to stand out, he ends
14:48
Speaker 1: up being just like everybody else. And he's trying to
14:51
Speaker 1: manage this complete control over his life. And all of
14:54
Speaker 1: this is just because he wants to be somebody. I mean,
14:58
Speaker 1: he wants to He wants to be noticed. He wants
15:01
Speaker 1: to be noticed as a person. That's all he's ever wanted.
15:04
Speaker 1: But he doesn't know how to do that because he's
15:06
Speaker 1: unable to notice his own self. He doesn't know who
15:10
Speaker 1: ivan ilyitch is. He spent his entire life building this mask,
15:15
Speaker 1: this illusion, this caricature of what somebody in society is
15:21
Speaker 1: supposed to look like, and in so doing, he's failed
15:24
Speaker 1: to recognize, or he's failed to ask himself the question,
15:28
Speaker 1: who do I want to be? Right, if you don't
15:31
Speaker 1: ask yourself that question, what is it that I really want?
15:35
Speaker 1: Who is it that I really want to be? Then
15:38
Speaker 1: eventually you'll find that you've spent far too many years
15:42
Speaker 1: of your life trying to dress up a ghost as
15:46
Speaker 1: if you could, but every time you put on the
15:48
Speaker 1: new garments, they just fall to the floor in a
15:51
Speaker 1: pile of nothingness. But nonetheless, that's exactly what he's trying
15:55
Speaker 1: to do. And so he's trying to decorate his apartment,
15:56
Speaker 1: get everything just right. At one point, one of his
15:59
Speaker 1: servants is hanging some window treatments, but it's they're not
16:02
Speaker 1: he's not doing exactly in the way that evan Iliach wants.
16:05
Speaker 1: Evan Iliach has to like micro manage everything about this decorating.
16:09
Speaker 1: I mean, even when he was at work, he's like
16:11
Speaker 1: daydreaming about how he's going to decorate his apartment, and
16:14
Speaker 1: so he has to have everything to the perfect standards
16:16
Speaker 1: of this image that he's trying to construct. And the
16:19
Speaker 1: servant's not hanging up the window treatments in the right way,
16:22
Speaker 1: and so then evan Iliach says, okay, so let me
16:24
Speaker 1: do it, and so he gets up and he hangs
16:26
Speaker 1: the window treatments. But then he falls and he hits
16:29
Speaker 1: his side and he comments that, you know, if you
16:32
Speaker 1: weren't such an athlete, that might be a major issue.
16:34
Speaker 1: But I mean, he'll be fine. But of course this
16:37
Speaker 1: is going to be the beginning of the death of
16:39
Speaker 1: Ivan Iliach. And so as time goes on, he starts
16:43
Speaker 1: to feel this pain, this sickness. He's having a hard
16:45
Speaker 1: time eating, he's getting more irritable that there's obviously something
16:50
Speaker 1: wrong here, but at first he doesn't want to recognize it,
16:53
Speaker 1: and eventually he has to recognize it because he's going
16:58
Speaker 1: to go through these spirals of of kind of debating
17:01
Speaker 1: with himself, of denial and despairing acceptance. And this happens
17:05
Speaker 1: on a number of different layers, and so first it's
17:08
Speaker 1: am I sick? Am I not sick? And eventually the
17:12
Speaker 1: I am sick that bubbles up and to the point
17:14
Speaker 1: where he can no longer deny it, and so he
17:16
Speaker 1: is sick. Well, his wife makes him see a number
17:20
Speaker 1: of doctors, and none of these doctors really know what's
17:22
Speaker 1: wrong with him, or rather, they all know what's wrong
17:25
Speaker 1: with them, but they all know different things to be
17:28
Speaker 1: wrong with him, and so there's no agreement on what's
17:31
Speaker 1: wrong with him, let alone what kind of treatment he
17:33
Speaker 1: should pursue. And none of these doctors really care about him.
17:36
Speaker 1: None of them are listening to him. They're just concerned
17:39
Speaker 1: about working out the puzzle. That's what they're interested in.
17:41
Speaker 1: But they're not interested in him as a person, which
17:43
Speaker 1: is I guess poetic justice, maybe maybe irony because previously
17:47
Speaker 1: we're told that what he loved, what evan Ilias loved
17:50
Speaker 1: about his job as a civil magistrate is that he
17:53
Speaker 1: was able to pull people into court and that he
17:55
Speaker 1: could hold their life in his hands and he could
17:59
Speaker 1: decide whether to let him go or to destroy them. Now,
18:04
Speaker 1: to be fair, I mean, he never exercises power to
18:06
Speaker 1: unjustly destroy somebody, but he reveled in the fact that
18:09
Speaker 1: he could, and so he reveled in this illusion of
18:13
Speaker 1: having power because he didn't have power over his own life.
18:18
Speaker 1: He reveled in being able to exercise that power over
18:20
Speaker 1: other people. But he was too much of a coward
18:22
Speaker 1: to even play the tyrant. All he wanted was this
18:26
Speaker 1: illusion of power. His whole life, he's been chasing an
18:29
Speaker 1: illusion all because he wants to be known and he
18:33
Speaker 1: wants to be noticed, but he doesn't want to take responsibility. Well,
18:38
Speaker 1: now these doctors are doing the same thing that they
18:40
Speaker 1: are reveling in their power over this man, over this case. Rather,
18:44
Speaker 1: that's even better way of saying it. They're reveled in
18:46
Speaker 1: their power over this case, but they weren't actually interested
18:50
Speaker 1: in him, and so he keeps asking this question to
18:54
Speaker 1: the doctors. He says, is this serious? Am I going
18:58
Speaker 1: to die? And they just think that's an inappropriate question
19:01
Speaker 1: and they don't want to entertain it. But that's the
19:04
Speaker 1: one question that he wants to know that once he
19:06
Speaker 1: knows for sure, yeah, okay, I'm sick, now he wants
19:08
Speaker 1: to know the question, am I going to die? This
19:11
Speaker 1: is the next level of the spiral, And he goes
19:14
Speaker 1: back and forth. Sometimes he has good days and he
19:16
Speaker 1: convinces himself that he's getting better. Other days he has
19:20
Speaker 1: bad days, and he's he comes to the realization that
19:23
Speaker 1: I'm not getting any better. The treatments aren't working. I
19:27
Speaker 1: am indeed dying, And so this death just continues to
19:32
Speaker 1: haunt him. In fact, there's one chapter in particular it's
19:35
Speaker 1: very haunting, which also I keep talking about how he
19:38
Speaker 1: would ignore it, but it would keep rising up, it
19:41
Speaker 1: being his realization of his own impending mortality. And so
19:47
Speaker 1: the next he goes from the spiral of am I sick?
19:49
Speaker 1: To I am sick? He goes through the spiral of
19:51
Speaker 1: am I dying? To I am dying, and now he's
19:54
Speaker 1: going to go through the deeper existential spiral that's going
19:57
Speaker 1: to lead him to recognize what it is that he is,
20:00
Speaker 1: what it is that he's always wanted to be, And
20:03
Speaker 1: so he begins asking questions like, Okay, what is it
20:06
Speaker 1: that I want? And he answers himself and he says,
20:08
Speaker 1: what I want is to be better. What I want
20:10
Speaker 1: is to live, and then he follows up in his
20:12
Speaker 1: own internal monologue he says live, how well, how I've
20:17
Speaker 1: always lived? But then as he says that, that despair
20:21
Speaker 1: starts to rise up and he's starting to think, like,
20:23
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how I've always lived? But what I've
20:26
Speaker 1: always lived is absolutely miserable. And he starts thinking back
20:31
Speaker 1: over his life, over every major step that he's taken,
20:34
Speaker 1: and he recognizes, like back in school, that the groups
20:36
Speaker 1: that he was in that he wasn't in because he
20:38
Speaker 1: actually wanted to be in those groups or he actually
20:40
Speaker 1: liked those people. He was in the groups that served
20:43
Speaker 1: his advancement in society. He was in the kind of
20:45
Speaker 1: groups that he felt like he ought to be in,
20:48
Speaker 1: and that's how he navigated every step of the social
20:53
Speaker 1: ladder that he just he engaged in relationships, the groups,
20:57
Speaker 1: the outings. He did the things that someone needed to
20:59
Speaker 1: do in order to be somebody. And again, if you've
21:02
Speaker 1: read that Hideous Strength, there's some very strong mark stetic
21:05
Speaker 1: connections here. But eventually he comes to recognize that he
21:09
Speaker 1: hasn't actually been happy, despite the fact that he's been
21:11
Speaker 1: pretty successful in his career at least, he hasn't really
21:14
Speaker 1: been happy for a very long time, not since childhood,
21:18
Speaker 1: but over time. Who Ivan Ilyitch is as a person
21:23
Speaker 1: by nature? By nature, I mean like true to what
21:26
Speaker 1: it is that he's supposed to be, actually supposed to
21:29
Speaker 1: be as a human. That gets covered up over time
21:32
Speaker 1: through the artificial construct of societal identity. But at this
21:37
Speaker 1: point he recognizes that he's always yearned for something more.
21:40
Speaker 1: He's yearned for something real, and so he goes from
21:44
Speaker 1: I'm going to die to what do I want? And
21:48
Speaker 1: now he recognizes what I want is not just to live.
21:51
Speaker 1: What I want is to live well. And so he's
21:55
Speaker 1: trying to deal with what that issue is. And you know,
21:58
Speaker 1: as his disease continues to pick up and he starts
22:01
Speaker 1: to approach the end, well, now he starts asking the
22:03
Speaker 1: question of what do I want, not just what do
22:06
Speaker 1: I want, but what should I want? Right now he
22:08
Speaker 1: moves on to what should I want? So now he's
22:11
Speaker 1: engaging in ethical reasoning, he's putting himself under an ethical standard,
22:14
Speaker 1: and he's recognizing that not all desires are equaled, that
22:17
Speaker 1: there's certain things that he should want. And this really
22:21
Speaker 1: develops as he approaches the very end of his life,
22:24
Speaker 1: and we're told that he suffered for three days, that
22:29
Speaker 1: his death was carried out over the course of three
22:32
Speaker 1: days of absolute agony, and that's going to be significant.
22:36
Speaker 1: But we'll probably get more into that, into some of
22:39
Speaker 1: the symbolism here when we talk about Evan Iliach on
22:41
Speaker 1: the main Mythic Mind podcast. But he suffers for three days,
22:46
Speaker 1: and then at the end he starts to recognize that
22:49
Speaker 1: he lived his life the entirely wrong way. And so
22:53
Speaker 1: now that ethical question of what should I want has
22:56
Speaker 1: gone on to I haven't lived in the way that
22:59
Speaker 1: I should have. I haven't wanted the things that I
23:02
Speaker 1: should have wanted. That all along, I've learned I've yearned
23:07
Speaker 1: to be somebody real. I've yearned to be someone authentic,
23:11
Speaker 1: somebody who's capable of noticing himself. I've yearned to be
23:15
Speaker 1: a person, a substantial person, and not just a ghost
23:20
Speaker 1: of societal standing. But I've wanted, I've yearned to be
23:24
Speaker 1: a substantial person. And the Lewis connections are all over right.
23:27
Speaker 1: This is strong great divorce connections. Here we talk about
23:30
Speaker 1: the difference between his ghosts and the solid spirits, and
23:34
Speaker 1: so he's yearned to be someone solid, not someone illusory.
23:38
Speaker 1: And as he approaches his death, he he has this
23:44
Speaker 1: literal come to Jesus moment where you know that the
23:47
Speaker 1: this is somebody who hasn't been terribly religious, despite living
23:51
Speaker 1: in a religious environment, religious culture. He is not somebody
23:55
Speaker 1: who's been very religious. But right at the end, he
23:59
Speaker 1: wrecked cognizes that he's lived his life in the wrong
24:01
Speaker 1: way before the eyes of God. He and he looks
24:06
Speaker 1: at his son, he looks at his wife really for
24:08
Speaker 1: the first time, and he recognizes that he didn't do
24:11
Speaker 1: right by them, and he tries to say that he's sorry.
24:14
Speaker 1: He tries to say forgive me, but he can't manage
24:19
Speaker 1: to get the words out, and he consoles himself saying
24:21
Speaker 1: that it's okay that he couldn't get the words out,
24:24
Speaker 1: because he who most needed to hear the plea for forgiveness,
24:27
Speaker 1: heard it, and so at that point he's able to
24:30
Speaker 1: stop struggling against death, which has described like you know,
24:33
Speaker 1: somebody who's thrown a sack over his head and dragging
24:35
Speaker 1: him against his will. Well, no, now he feels peace
24:39
Speaker 1: because there is no death. Tolstoy tells us he is
24:42
Speaker 1: now able to be received into the fullness of life.
24:46
Speaker 1: And as he dies, the final words that he hears
24:49
Speaker 1: from the room around him are it is finished. And
24:53
Speaker 1: that's how the story ends. And so what you have
24:56
Speaker 1: here is a man who is but a ghost of
24:59
Speaker 1: a man, man who's yearning to be real, yearning to
25:02
Speaker 1: be someone of substance. He's a bad man who wants
25:05
Speaker 1: to be good. Now. He's not bad in the sense
25:09
Speaker 1: of being like a gross villain who's terrorizing the town.
25:13
Speaker 1: But he's a bad man in that he's not what
25:15
Speaker 1: a man is supposed to be. He's not authentic to
25:18
Speaker 1: what it means to be human. He doesn't know who
25:21
Speaker 1: ivon Iliage is is. He's a bad husband, he's a
25:26
Speaker 1: bad friend, he's a bad father. And so this is
25:30
Speaker 1: I think something that Tolstoy does brilliantly in that he
25:34
Speaker 1: demonstrates what a bad man looks like in the everyday.
25:39
Speaker 1: It's not always the gross villain. It's not always the
25:43
Speaker 1: serial killer or the hitler or the stalin that knows.
25:47
Speaker 1: Sometimes a bad man is actually quite ordinary. In fact,
25:50
Speaker 1: he may even be you or me. But despite being
25:54
Speaker 1: a bad man, he's someone who wants to be a
25:56
Speaker 1: good man but doesn't really know how to do it.
25:59
Speaker 1: And tell the very end now, as I was playing
26:02
Speaker 1: through Red Dead Redunction two, there is a certain point
26:06
Speaker 1: at which Arthur Morgan starts to get sick and eventually
26:11
Speaker 1: he just collapses in the middle of town and he's
26:14
Speaker 1: dragged off to the doctor where he finds out that
26:16
Speaker 1: he has tuberculosis, and he's told us a serious and
26:19
Speaker 1: that he's probably going to die. And so for the
26:22
Speaker 1: rest of the game, Arthur Morgan he's dying, and he
26:25
Speaker 1: increasingly comes to recognize the fact that he is dying.
26:29
Speaker 1: And this is why, especially from this point on, the
26:33
Speaker 1: game is so much more compelling when you play an
26:35
Speaker 1: honorable path, because the story is really trying to push
26:39
Speaker 1: you in this direction. The story is trying to help
26:41
Speaker 1: you recognize what Arthur Morgan is, recognizing that the things
26:45
Speaker 1: that he used to live for that the things that
26:47
Speaker 1: made him a bad man, that praying on other people,
26:51
Speaker 1: that even seeking to be somebody in this gang that
26:55
Speaker 1: he's been running with, this gang that he's been running
26:56
Speaker 1: with since he was a kid, something like the only
27:00
Speaker 1: family that he's known, but it's actually a terrible family that,
27:04
Speaker 1: you know, his whole life has been spent trying to
27:06
Speaker 1: be somebody in this gang, especially to this terrible mentor
27:10
Speaker 1: who has a who plays a fatherlike role to him,
27:13
Speaker 1: but just that father like he's not very fatherly really,
27:17
Speaker 1: And so Arthur Morgan he wants to be somebody, but
27:20
Speaker 1: he goes about it in all the wrong ways. He
27:22
Speaker 1: is a bad man who yearns to be something good,
27:25
Speaker 1: but he just doesn't know how to do it well.
27:28
Speaker 1: As he increasingly comes to terms for his own mortality,
27:32
Speaker 1: he starts to become a good man. He recognizes that
27:36
Speaker 1: things that he used to want are not what he
27:38
Speaker 1: should have wanted. Right, He's able to ask himself, have
27:41
Speaker 1: I wanted the right? Things? Like how do I want
27:44
Speaker 1: to live? How should I be living? And so now
27:47
Speaker 1: we get this redemption arc, and hence the name of
27:50
Speaker 1: the series, right red ed Redemption, And so we get
27:53
Speaker 1: this redemption arc where now he starts to yearn for
27:57
Speaker 1: goodness and he starts to get a better sense of
27:58
Speaker 1: what goodness is. Now, this is not a Christian game,
28:01
Speaker 1: it's not explicitly and so he's not going to have
28:03
Speaker 1: this great conversion experience, although there's some degree of religion
28:07
Speaker 1: that plays into it. But really what you have is
28:09
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan looking at the light that he's led, recognizing
28:13
Speaker 1: he's been a bad man, and now he's understanding a
28:15
Speaker 1: goodness is. I'm going to start moving in a different direction,
28:19
Speaker 1: the opposite direction of that, which is I mean, if
28:21
Speaker 1: you don't know what goodness is, that's not a bad
28:23
Speaker 1: way to go about it. Because I'm an often badness
28:26
Speaker 1: is more easily recognizable than goodness. Like I talk about
28:30
Speaker 1: this a lot in my philosophy classes, you know, when
28:33
Speaker 1: I teach them in the public university. That as much
28:36
Speaker 1: as everyone claims to be a relativist, like, we all
28:38
Speaker 1: recognize gross evil when we see it. We all recognize
28:42
Speaker 1: that it's bad to commit murder. It's it's bad to
28:47
Speaker 1: do any number of things, right, I mean, push an
28:49
Speaker 1: old lady into the middle of the road, Like there's
28:51
Speaker 1: a lot of things that everyone recognizes are just bad.
28:54
Speaker 1: And so you know, if we don't have a firm
28:57
Speaker 1: understanding of goodness, as you know, I would propose and
29:00
Speaker 1: moving in the direction of the beatific vision, the font
29:03
Speaker 1: of all goodness, Like if you don't have that, then
29:05
Speaker 1: at the very leads you can start to move in
29:07
Speaker 1: whatever direction is the opposite of what is clearly bad
29:10
Speaker 1: like that, that's at least a start. And so that's
29:13
Speaker 1: really what Arthur Morgan does. And I mean it's short
29:18
Speaker 1: of playing the game yourself, it's hard to communicate just
29:22
Speaker 1: what a strong, compelling job the writers of this game
29:26
Speaker 1: do in portraying that redemption arc and helping you to
29:29
Speaker 1: really feel it, to experience his sense of regret and
29:32
Speaker 1: longing to make things right with the final bits of
29:36
Speaker 1: breath that are quickly being expelled from his lungs. It's
29:39
Speaker 1: not a one to one connection between the story of
29:42
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyitch and Arthur Morgan, but I do think that
29:45
Speaker 1: both of them are approaching the same basic archetype of
29:48
Speaker 1: coming to terms with mortality and letting that renew the
29:51
Speaker 1: way that you're engaging with the world around you. I mean,
29:54
Speaker 1: there's this medieval phrase, medieval Latin phrase memento mori remember
29:59
Speaker 1: that you will or remember your death. And it's important
30:03
Speaker 1: to always have this reminder in front of us, not
30:06
Speaker 1: in a morbid sense that causes us to forego our
30:10
Speaker 1: responsibilities and our enjoyment in life, but actually this reminder
30:15
Speaker 1: to embrace the responsibilities and enjoyment we can have in
30:19
Speaker 1: this life, because this life is fleeting in many ways,
30:24
Speaker 1: like in the long run, it's already forfeit. And so
30:28
Speaker 1: what we need to do is to redeem that life.
30:32
Speaker 1: Redeem that life by living well, redeem that life by
30:36
Speaker 1: being a good person. And I don't just mean that
30:39
Speaker 1: in sort of like a generic subjective, you know, be
30:42
Speaker 1: good according to your you know, whims of morality. What
30:46
Speaker 1: it mean is live in the way that a person
30:49
Speaker 1: is meant to live. You know. Aristota would say what
30:52
Speaker 1: that means is you live a life according to reason
30:54
Speaker 1: and virtue. The Westminster Catechism says that the chief end
30:57
Speaker 1: of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him
30:59
Speaker 1: for and so when I talk about being a good person,
31:04
Speaker 1: what I mean is you fulfill the form of what
31:05
Speaker 1: a person is supposed to be. And I think that
31:09
Speaker 1: this game does it very provides a very strong, very
31:13
Speaker 1: compelling case for arguing that video games can deal with
31:19
Speaker 1: significant existential issues, significant issues that the very least approach
31:25
Speaker 1: the literary, or maybe we even want to say that
31:27
Speaker 1: they can echo the literary, That they are artistic endeavors
31:31
Speaker 1: that can connect us to things that are true, good,
31:35
Speaker 1: and beautiful. And that I think is where I'm going
31:38
Speaker 1: to leave this off for now. Next time we'll have
31:41
Speaker 1: more of a just general paneled conversation on this game.
31:46
Speaker 1: What's enjoyable about it, what's enriching about it, what wisdom
31:48
Speaker 1: we can mind from it, and it's kind of wherever
31:50
Speaker 1: things go from there. As a reminder, this is only
31:54
Speaker 1: one branch of the Mythic Mind fellowship. We also have
31:57
Speaker 1: our main podcast simply called Mythic Mind, which takes primarily
32:02
Speaker 1: a literary focus, but it's also kind of a staging
32:04
Speaker 1: ground for trying out new ideas that potentially move into
32:07
Speaker 1: more branch shows like this. It's really just the main
32:10
Speaker 1: hub of what we do, and so make sure you
32:12
Speaker 1: subscribe to the main Mythic Mind podcast. And also we
32:15
Speaker 1: recently launched the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows podcast, which
32:19
Speaker 1: does exactly what it claims to do in the title,
32:23
Speaker 1: it's much like this show. We're looking at more popular
32:27
Speaker 1: medium through the lens of the Christian humanities. But for
32:31
Speaker 1: that show, it's obviously dealing with movies and shows. And
32:33
Speaker 1: right now we're working on a Star Wars series, and
32:36
Speaker 1: after that we'll go, I don't we'll see where we go.
32:39
Speaker 1: We'll kind of popcorn around a little bit with ideas
32:41
Speaker 1: on that within the Fellowship. And if you enjoyed this episode,
32:46
Speaker 1: you enjoy the broader work that we do any all
32:49
Speaker 1: some of it, and you want to see more of
32:51
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32:54
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33:15
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Speaker 1: so right now that includes Plato Stoicism until we have Faces,
33:41
Speaker 1: which is coming up next in the fall. We have
33:43
Speaker 1: the Elder Scrolls and Philosophy, and at the beginning of
33:46
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six we have these Summarillion, and we may
33:50
Speaker 1: have one more course than that term at this point
33:52
Speaker 1: as well, but definitely those three. And so if you're
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Speaker 1: platform final link for that in the show notes. Next
34:19
Speaker 1: time we will return with more Red Dead Redemption two,
34:22
Speaker 1: but until next time, God speed. The Elder Scrolls in
34:34
Speaker 1: Philosophy is six week course beginning in September twenty twenty five.
34:41
Speaker 1: I don't play many video games these days, but there
34:43
Speaker 1: are certain titles that have stuck with me, enchanting the
34:46
Speaker 1: mind of my youth and never entirely fading away. One
34:49
Speaker 1: of the chiefs among these titles is The Elder Scrolls,
34:52
Speaker 1: namely Moruin, Oblivion and Skyrim. The level of artistry, mythology,
34:57
Speaker 1: and lore of this universe is vast and provide is
35:00
Speaker 1: a strong representative for asking the question as to how
35:03
Speaker 1: video games might relate to literature as an art form,
35:06
Speaker 1: Where might it rise to such a level, where must
35:09
Speaker 1: it fall short? And what unique advantages does it possess.
35:12
Speaker 1: For this eight week study, we'll be seeking to answer
35:15
Speaker 1: these questions while analyzing various elements of this franchise, specifically
35:19
Speaker 1: focusing on content related to Morrow and Oblivion and Skyrim.
35:23
Speaker 1: Will be taking a look at the philosophy of RPGs
35:25
Speaker 1: and considering the philosophical implications of character creation and formation
35:30
Speaker 1: in an open ended series such as this, and will
35:32
Speaker 1: be looking at the relationship between in game religion, lore,
35:36
Speaker 1: and ideas with our primary world philosophical and religious concepts.
35:40
Speaker 1: Each week will include one to two videos addressing these topics,
35:44
Speaker 1: ongoing discord conversations, and live meetings. You are also encouraged
35:48
Speaker 1: to spend at least a little time playing one of
35:49
Speaker 1: these titles each week as a launching pad for conversation.
35:54
Speaker 1: Join us in Tamreil that we might better understand our
35:56
Speaker 1: primary life here on Mundus. Enroll today by going to
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Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and checking out the shop,
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36:11
Speaker 1: Get that Tier three annual subscription and I'll give you
36:13
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36:16
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