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53 - Red Dead Redemption 2: Arthur Morgan, Ivan Ilyich & Memento Mori (revisit) · Mythic Mind Games

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey there. Things have been pretty crazy for me this
0:02
Speaker 1: month as we've been waiting the situation between houses while
0:05
Speaker 1: our new construction keeps getting delayed. Hopefully things will get
0:08
Speaker 1: back to normal pretty soon here, and then I'll record
0:10
Speaker 1: my planned discussion of Claire Obscure in relation to Final
0:14
Speaker 1: Fantasy VII. But for now, in keeping with our Into
0:17
Speaker 1: the Psyche theme, I'm going to re-up my early episode
0:20
Speaker 1: on Arthur Morgan and Ivan Ilyich. I hope you enjoy. Howdy, partners. Recently,
0:38
Speaker 1: I've been playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 as I
0:42
Speaker 1: continue getting my reacquaintance with video games. As I've mentioned
0:47
Speaker 1: in previous episodes, I took a long break, I mean,
0:49
Speaker 1: like a decade or so, when I really didn't play
0:52
Speaker 1: much of anything as I just was engaged with other things, right?
0:57
Speaker 1: I'm engaged with career, family, education, all sorts of stuff.
0:59
Speaker 1: And so I really just didn't play video games. But
1:03
Speaker 1: as I've started to step back into this arena... mining
1:06
Speaker 1: them for the wisdom that they hold and just engaging
1:10
Speaker 1: with what I think is potentially a productive avenue of enchantment.
1:15
Speaker 1: I decided that one of the first new games, not
1:18
Speaker 1: really new, I guess, by today's standards, but it's new
1:21
Speaker 1: to me. One of the newer games that I wanted
1:24
Speaker 1: to check out was Red Dead Redemption 2. You know,
1:27
Speaker 1: I've seen a number of clips here and there. I've
1:30
Speaker 1: I'm drawn in by the aesthetic of the Wild West.
1:34
Speaker 1: I mean, cowboys are like the quintessential American folk story.
1:39
Speaker 1: I mean, this is our mythology. I mean, it's a
1:42
Speaker 1: better way of saying it. That the Europeans have their
1:44
Speaker 1: knights and Americans have their cowboys. And so there's just
1:47
Speaker 1: something about this aesthetic that connects with me on a
1:50
Speaker 1: deep level. And so I played Red Dead Redemption 2.
1:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely incredible game. If you haven't played it, I strongly
1:56
Speaker 1: recommend it. Now, I have not played the first Red
2:01
Speaker 1: Dead Redemption yet, although I did play Red Dead Revolver
2:04
Speaker 1: way back in the day, which was the kind of
2:06
Speaker 1: spiritual precursor to the series now. But the second one
2:10
Speaker 1: is a prequel, and so while I understand that there's
2:13
Speaker 1: probably some enrichment, some benefit that comes through playing the
2:16
Speaker 1: first one first, it's not absolutely necessary. At least that's
2:19
Speaker 1: what I was told, and that's certainly what I've experienced.
2:22
Speaker 1: It's a great story as it stands alone, and eventually
2:25
Speaker 1: I'll make it to the first one as well. Well,
2:29
Speaker 1: like I said, I was blown away by this game.
2:31
Speaker 1: For one thing, it's fun, it's enchanting. There's just so
2:35
Speaker 1: much that comes out of just exploring the wilderness, exploring
2:40
Speaker 1: the towns, whether you choose to take an honorable path
2:44
Speaker 1: and be something of a reforming cowboy, or you play
2:48
Speaker 1: the role of just the dishonorable, hard-edged outlaw. Either way,
2:53
Speaker 1: it's fun, but I definitely came to find that the
2:58
Speaker 1: honorable path is definitely more satisfying. And so that's how
3:02
Speaker 1: I decided to play the game. So I decided to
3:04
Speaker 1: beat the game. Since then, I've also fiddled around a
3:06
Speaker 1: little bit being more of just a straight out outlaw,
3:09
Speaker 1: you know, robbing trains, robbing stores. And I've definitely come
3:13
Speaker 1: to find that the honorable path is more satisfying, even
3:16
Speaker 1: though the dishonorable path is more fun. It's fun to
3:20
Speaker 1: rob trains and whatnot. Don't take that out of context
3:24
Speaker 1: of this particular focus. But I knew that this was
3:28
Speaker 1: a game that I wanted to discuss with you. And
3:32
Speaker 1: this is going to be a two-parter. And so in
3:34
Speaker 1: this episode, it's just me. And I want to get
3:38
Speaker 1: into what I believe are some of the most heartening
3:42
Speaker 1: as well as heartbreaking elements of the story. And in particular,
3:46
Speaker 1: I want to be discussing the role that Arthur Morgan plays,
3:51
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan being the main protagonist, your character. And so
3:54
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the role of Arthur Morgan
3:57
Speaker 1: in relation with Tolstoy's short story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
4:01
Speaker 1: And warning right now, there will be spoilers for both
4:04
Speaker 1: the game as well as Tolstoy's story in this episode.
4:08
Speaker 1: But I'd And so you can make of that what
4:11
Speaker 1: you will. But I do think that on the main
4:15
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind podcast at some point down the road, maybe
4:18
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later, I'm not really sure. But we've
4:20
Speaker 1: been talking about having an episode on the death of
4:23
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyich over on the main Mythic Mind podcast episode.
4:26
Speaker 1: For now, I'm really just going to lay out the
4:29
Speaker 1: major outline of the story as a refresher or if
4:32
Speaker 1: you've not read it before. And then I just want
4:35
Speaker 1: to draw on some comparisons here between Arthur Morgan and
4:38
Speaker 1: the titular character of Tolstoy's short story, Ivan Ilyich. Now,
4:43
Speaker 1: the death of Ivan Ilyich begins after the death of
4:46
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyich. In the first chapter, it's kind of like
4:50
Speaker 1: a prologue where you have some of Ivan Ilyich's acquaintances,
4:54
Speaker 1: some of his colleagues at the courthouse. He works in law.
4:59
Speaker 1: They all work in law. And they read in the
5:01
Speaker 1: newspaper that Ivan Ilyich has died. And they don't break
5:05
Speaker 1: into tears. They don't start mourning. And they say some
5:10
Speaker 1: of the niceties that you might say when somebody you
5:14
Speaker 1: learn that someone you know dies. But they quickly move
5:17
Speaker 1: on to what this really means for them practically in
5:22
Speaker 1: regards to their career, like what it means for them financially,
5:24
Speaker 1: what it means for them positionally. And so they almost
5:28
Speaker 1: instantly move to, oh, it's a shame that he died
5:31
Speaker 1: to now. So you're going to get this promotion. Now
5:34
Speaker 1: you can take his spot. I'm going to take his spot.
5:37
Speaker 1: And so they're more concerned with how's this going to
5:40
Speaker 1: affect me? How's this going to affect my career? Then
5:44
Speaker 1: they are concerned about the death of Ivan Ilyich. In fact,
5:48
Speaker 1: even Piotr Ivanovich, who is the closest to a friend
5:51
Speaker 1: that Ivan Ilyich has, like Even he is just kind
5:55
Speaker 1: of cracking jokes and he's not deeply moved. And we're
5:59
Speaker 1: told that they all had the same thought, that none
6:03
Speaker 1: of them expressed it, but they all had this thought somewhere.
6:05
Speaker 1: Maybe it was thought consciously, maybe subconsciously, but they all
6:08
Speaker 1: had this thought that it was Ivan Ilyich who was
6:11
Speaker 1: dead and not me. And so you have all these people.
6:17
Speaker 1: They have their good careers. They're financially stable. They are
6:22
Speaker 1: moving up now in the world, right? That a number
6:25
Speaker 1: of them are going to be getting promotions with the
6:27
Speaker 1: death of Ivan Ilyich. But when it comes to the
6:30
Speaker 1: existential question of what does it all mean relative to
6:34
Speaker 1: the fact that just like Ivan Ilyich, I too am
6:37
Speaker 1: going to die. That's just not something that they're willing
6:41
Speaker 1: to come to terms with. And so they keep shielding
6:45
Speaker 1: themselves from that reality. It's he who died, not me.
6:47
Speaker 1: This death has nothing to do with me. His mortality
6:50
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with my own. Well, eventually they
6:54
Speaker 1: make their way over to the funeral service and they
6:57
Speaker 1: pay respects to his wife, the widow Praskovya Fyodorovna. And
7:01
Speaker 1: even then, his widow, Praskovya Fedorovna, she calls Pyotr Ivanovich
7:06
Speaker 1: over for a secret meeting. Not secret, private meeting. That's
7:11
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for. They have this private meeting and
7:14
Speaker 1: they both just engage in the kind of conversation that
7:18
Speaker 1: you would expect that Ivan Ilyich's friend and widow would have.
7:22
Speaker 1: And so they're just chatting. Oh, it's such a shame.
7:26
Speaker 1: Pyotr Ivanovich says, did Ivan Ilyich suffer at the end?
7:31
Speaker 1: And Praskovya Fedorovna says, well, yes, he suffered, that he
7:35
Speaker 1: was just screaming incessantly for three days at the end.
7:39
Speaker 1: And so she is far more concerned with her own
7:43
Speaker 1: inconvenience that she faced in light of the death of
7:46
Speaker 1: her husband than she is concerned with the death of
7:49
Speaker 1: her husband. He was a nuisance to her. And so
7:52
Speaker 1: just as they are first and foremost, his friends are
7:55
Speaker 1: first and foremost concerned with just their own earthly material well-being,
8:02
Speaker 1: so too is she. She obviously did not care very
8:05
Speaker 1: deeply for her husband. She's kind of relieved that he's gone,
8:08
Speaker 1: but she can't say that because she feels like she's
8:11
Speaker 1: bound by social propriety to mourn and to say certain things,
8:15
Speaker 1: just as Peter Ivanovich is saying certain things. But none
8:18
Speaker 1: of them, it's all on the surface. It doesn't come
8:21
Speaker 1: from the heart. They're not having a real conversation with
8:23
Speaker 1: each other. And in fact, we eventually find out through
8:25
Speaker 1: the course of this phony conversation that the only reason
8:29
Speaker 1: why Praskovya Fedorovna is trying to talk to Pyotr Ivanovich
8:32
Speaker 1: is because she is hoping that Pyotr Ivanovich can get
8:35
Speaker 1: more money out of the government pension for her. And
8:37
Speaker 1: so just as with his friends, she's concerned about what
8:41
Speaker 1: is this going to mean for me materially? And as
8:43
Speaker 1: soon as Pyotr Ivanovich says, yeah, that's probably not going
8:45
Speaker 1: to happen. Proskopi Fedorovna says, okay, well, then I better go.
8:49
Speaker 1: They just leave. And so just none of the, neither
8:52
Speaker 1: of them are having a real conversation with a person.
8:55
Speaker 1: They're both just engaging in social propriety that's meant to
8:58
Speaker 1: cover up their self-centeredness. Well, toward the end of this
9:01
Speaker 1: first chapter, you have Peter Ivanovich waiting for a car outside.
9:05
Speaker 1: And he's standing there next to Ivan Ilyich's butler, a
9:09
Speaker 1: guy named Gerasim. Now, Gerasim, who is really the only
9:15
Speaker 1: authentic person for the majority of the story, that he
9:20
Speaker 1: says something pretty profound. Peter Vonovich says, you know, it's
9:23
Speaker 1: a terrible business about Ivan Ilyich dying. And Gerasim says, basically,
9:28
Speaker 1: it's going to happen to all of us. This is
9:29
Speaker 1: God's will. And so he just, he recognizes the inevitability
9:35
Speaker 1: of death. He has this memento mori idea that even
9:38
Speaker 1: though of all the main characters in the story, Gersom
9:41
Speaker 1: is the lowest station. He is the only one who
9:45
Speaker 1: has actually come to terms with this mortality. He is
9:47
Speaker 1: the only one who's living with purpose. And so we
9:51
Speaker 1: come to find that his life, as lowly as it
9:53
Speaker 1: may be, is far, far more meaningful than these upper
9:56
Speaker 1: middle class lawyers and government workers. But after Garrison makes
10:01
Speaker 1: this proclamation about the inevitability of our mortality, Peter Ivanovich
10:06
Speaker 1: just doesn't really have anything to say. He just leaves
10:08
Speaker 1: because he's trying to avoid this reality. In fact, just
10:10
Speaker 1: a little bit ago at the scene, he's looking at
10:13
Speaker 1: the body. He's looking at the corpse of Ivan Ilyich.
10:16
Speaker 1: And he starts to just kind of panic because he's starting,
10:20
Speaker 1: something's bubbling up within him. He's starting to look in
10:23
Speaker 1: the face of mortality. Tolstoy tells us that the body
10:29
Speaker 1: was giving the message to Pyotr Ivanovich that dead bodies
10:33
Speaker 1: always give, right? Namely that you too will die. But
10:37
Speaker 1: instead of taking that message to heart, Pyotr Ivanovich says like,
10:41
Speaker 1: that's terribly inappropriate. And then he just reminds himself, oh wait,
10:45
Speaker 1: it's Ivan Ilyich who's dead. It's not me. And so
10:48
Speaker 1: he just keeps fleeing from this reality where if he can,
10:51
Speaker 1: Gerasim is the only person who is a person who
10:53
Speaker 1: recognizes people as people. Well, and then we start to
10:57
Speaker 1: get a backstory of Ivan Ilyich. And at that point,
10:59
Speaker 1: we're going to work our way up the rest of
11:01
Speaker 1: the short story up to the death of Ivan Ilyich.
11:05
Speaker 1: So Ivan Ilyich, by all estimations, was a mediocre guy.
11:09
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a middle child. His older brother
11:12
Speaker 1: is very successful. His younger brother is a deadbeat bum.
11:15
Speaker 1: And so he's right in the middle. He got his
11:19
Speaker 1: first job in law by essentially his father got him
11:24
Speaker 1: the job. And so this is a guy who really
11:26
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of agency. And in fact, if
11:28
Speaker 1: you've read The Hideous Strength, I see a lot of
11:31
Speaker 1: common ground between Ivan Ilyich and Mark Studdick. I strongly
11:36
Speaker 1: recommend reading those books side by side. And so Ivan Ilyich,
11:39
Speaker 1: he has a decent job. Eventually, as he's just climbing
11:43
Speaker 1: the social ladder, he's engaged in all these society parties.
11:49
Speaker 1: And he meets this woman named Praskovya Fedorovna. Now, Praskovya Fedorovna,
11:53
Speaker 1: we're told, was moderately attractive. She had a decent amount
11:56
Speaker 1: of money. And she liked Ivan Ilyich. And that's enough
12:00
Speaker 1: reason for Ivan Ilyich to get married. In fact, that's
12:02
Speaker 1: basically how Tolstoy laid it out. That she had this standing.
12:06
Speaker 1: She liked him well enough. And so they got married.
12:08
Speaker 1: And then they would just kind of move on from there.
12:10
Speaker 1: And so obviously, Ivan Ilyich didn't love her. He didn't
12:13
Speaker 1: even ever really commit himself to her. It was just,
12:17
Speaker 1: this is the next thing that I do as a
12:19
Speaker 1: member of society. It's time for him to get married.
12:20
Speaker 1: And so he gets married. And at first, things seem
12:24
Speaker 1: to be going OK. And that's because they're both able
12:27
Speaker 1: to keep living basically as they were before. I mean,
12:30
Speaker 1: when you get married before having kids, there's only but
12:34
Speaker 1: so much life change happening. Now, OK, don't misunderstand me.
12:39
Speaker 1: I should be careful when I say that. that obviously
12:42
Speaker 1: there is a major life change to get married, and
12:44
Speaker 1: that's obviously the case. But at the same time, when
12:47
Speaker 1: you don't have kids, there are only but so many
12:50
Speaker 1: responsibilities that you have as a family. You can still,
12:54
Speaker 1: for the most part, keep doing the things that you
12:57
Speaker 1: want to do, right? Just do them together. But eventually,
13:00
Speaker 1: Praskovya Fedorovna gets pregnant. And at this point, their marriage
13:04
Speaker 1: really starts to go downhill because now Ivan Ilyich has
13:07
Speaker 1: some real responsibilities. And this is not somebody who's been
13:12
Speaker 1: willing or able to take responsibilities. And so he basically
13:16
Speaker 1: just continues doing the things he wants to do. Goes
13:18
Speaker 1: to all the society parties, hangs out with his friends
13:20
Speaker 1: all hours, you know, works all the time. He really
13:23
Speaker 1: doesn't spend any time at home. While Praskovia Fedorovna, especially
13:26
Speaker 1: as the pregnancy continues, she spends more and more time
13:29
Speaker 1: at home and, you know, she's not feeling well. They
13:31
Speaker 1: get in a lot of fights and he just thinks
13:33
Speaker 1: that she's just, you know, being a nag and She
13:37
Speaker 1: thinks that he doesn't care about her, which is largely true.
13:41
Speaker 1: And so this is just begins. I mean, the really
13:44
Speaker 1: the functional end of their relationship. I mean, they continue together,
13:48
Speaker 1: but they're just always at each other's throats. They never
13:50
Speaker 1: understand each other. And this is in large part. I mean,
13:54
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. She's no heroine here. Like she's
13:56
Speaker 1: got her own problems. But at the same time, It's
14:00
Speaker 1: far easier for me to be sympathetic to Praskoja Fedorovna
14:03
Speaker 1: because he is such a bad husband and father that
14:08
Speaker 1: it's natural that resentment would grow in her as they
14:12
Speaker 1: continue down this path. Now, that doesn't justify her. She
14:16
Speaker 1: is not going to turn out to be an incredible
14:18
Speaker 1: wife for her own sake. But again, I have more
14:21
Speaker 1: sympathy for her because I get it, even if it's
14:24
Speaker 1: not necessarily excusable. And so she continues to get just
14:27
Speaker 1: embittered toward him. And then he just, you know, turns
14:31
Speaker 1: around by getting more invested in work and spending less
14:34
Speaker 1: time at home. And eventually he decides he needs to
14:37
Speaker 1: make some more money. And eventually he gets the job
14:39
Speaker 1: alongside Pyotr Ivanovich and gang. And at one point when
14:43
Speaker 1: he's setting things up in his new apartment, he's decorating
14:48
Speaker 1: everything to meet the aesthetics of the upper middle class.
14:51
Speaker 1: You know, those who want to look far more wealthy
14:54
Speaker 1: than they actually are. And so again, lacking agency, but
14:58
Speaker 1: wanting to be noticed. He decorates his house just like
15:02
Speaker 1: everyone else, right? In trying to stand out, he ends
15:05
Speaker 1: up being just like everybody else. And he's trying to
15:08
Speaker 1: manage this complete control over his life. And all of
15:11
Speaker 1: this is just because he wants to be somebody. I mean,
15:17
Speaker 1: he wants to be noticed. He wants to be noticed
15:18
Speaker 1: as a person. That's all he's ever wanted. But he
15:21
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to do that because he's unable to
15:23
Speaker 1: notice his own self. He doesn't know who Ivan Ilyich is.
15:28
Speaker 1: He spent his entire life building this mask, this illusion,
15:34
Speaker 1: this caricature of what somebody in society is supposed to
15:38
Speaker 1: look like. And in so doing, he's failed to recognize
15:41
Speaker 1: or he's failed to ask himself the question, who do
15:45
Speaker 1: I want to be? If you don't ask yourself that question,
15:49
Speaker 1: what is it that I really want? Who is it
15:52
Speaker 1: that I really want to be? that eventually you'll find
15:55
Speaker 1: that you've spent far too many years of your life
16:00
Speaker 1: trying to dress up a ghost as if you could.
16:03
Speaker 1: But every time you put on the new garments, they
16:05
Speaker 1: just fall to the floor in a pile of nothingness.
16:10
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, that's exactly what he's trying to do. And
16:12
Speaker 1: so he's trying to decorate his apartment, get everything just right.
16:14
Speaker 1: And at one point, one of his servants is hanging
16:16
Speaker 1: some window treatments, but he's not doing it exactly in
16:20
Speaker 1: the way that Ivan Ilyich wants. Ivan Ilyich has to
16:23
Speaker 1: like micromanage everything about this decorating. I mean, even when
16:26
Speaker 1: he was at work, he's like daydreaming about how he's
16:29
Speaker 1: going to decorate his apartment. And so he has to
16:31
Speaker 1: have everything to the perfect standards of this image that
16:34
Speaker 1: he's trying to construct. And the servants not hanging up
16:37
Speaker 1: the window treatments in the right way. And so then
16:39
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyich says, okay, so let me do it. And
16:41
Speaker 1: so he gets up and he hangs the window treatments,
16:43
Speaker 1: but then he falls and he hits his side. And
16:47
Speaker 1: he comments that if he weren't such an athlete, that
16:50
Speaker 1: might be a major issue, but I mean, he'll be fine.
16:52
Speaker 1: But of course, this is going to be the beginning
16:55
Speaker 1: of the death of Ivan Ilyich. And so as time
16:58
Speaker 1: goes on, he starts to feel this pain, this sickness.
17:01
Speaker 1: He's having a hard time eating. He's getting more irritable.
17:05
Speaker 1: There's obviously something wrong here, but at first he doesn't
17:08
Speaker 1: want to recognize it. And eventually he has to recognize
17:12
Speaker 1: it because he's going to go through these spirals of
17:17
Speaker 1: of debating with himself, of denial and despairing acceptance. And
17:21
Speaker 1: this happens on a number of different layers. And so
17:23
Speaker 1: first it's, am I sick? Am I not sick? And
17:26
Speaker 1: eventually the, I am sick, that bubbles up to the
17:30
Speaker 1: point where he can no longer deny it. And so
17:32
Speaker 1: he is sick. Well, his wife makes him see a
17:36
Speaker 1: number of doctors and none of these doctors really know
17:39
Speaker 1: what's wrong with him or rather he's They all know
17:41
Speaker 1: what's wrong with them, but they all know different things
17:44
Speaker 1: to be wrong with them. And so there's no agreement
17:46
Speaker 1: on what's wrong with him, let alone what kind of
17:48
Speaker 1: treatment he should pursue. And none of these doctors really
17:52
Speaker 1: care about him. None of them are listening to him.
17:54
Speaker 1: They're just concerned about working out the puzzle. That's what
17:56
Speaker 1: they're interested in. But they're not interested in him as
17:58
Speaker 1: a person, which is, I guess, poetic justice, maybe irony.
18:03
Speaker 1: Because previously we're told that what he loved, what Ivan
18:06
Speaker 1: Ilyich loved about his job as a civil magistrate is
18:09
Speaker 1: that he was able to pull people into court and
18:11
Speaker 1: that he could hold their life in his hands and
18:15
Speaker 1: he could decide whether to let them go or to
18:18
Speaker 1: destroy them. Now, To be fair, I mean, he never
18:21
Speaker 1: exercised his power to unjustly destroy somebody, but he reveled
18:25
Speaker 1: in the fact that he could. And so he reveled
18:28
Speaker 1: in this illusion of having power. Because he didn't have
18:32
Speaker 1: power over his own life, he reveled in being able
18:35
Speaker 1: to exercise that power over other people, but he was
18:38
Speaker 1: too much of a coward to even play the tyrant.
18:41
Speaker 1: All he wanted was this illusion of power. His whole
18:45
Speaker 1: life he's been chasing an illusion, all because he wants
18:48
Speaker 1: to be known, and he wants to be noticed, but
18:51
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to take responsibility. Well, now these doctors
18:55
Speaker 1: are doing the same thing, that they are reveling in
18:57
Speaker 1: their power over this man, over this case, rather. That's
19:01
Speaker 1: an even better way of saying it. They're reveling in
19:03
Speaker 1: their power over this case, but they weren't actually interested
19:06
Speaker 1: in him. And so he keeps asking this question to
19:10
Speaker 1: the doctors. He says, is this serious? Am I going
19:14
Speaker 1: to die? And they just think that's an inappropriate question,
19:18
Speaker 1: and they don't want to entertain it. But that's the
19:20
Speaker 1: one question that he wants to know. That once he
19:22
Speaker 1: knows for sure, yeah, okay, I'm sick. Now he wants
19:25
Speaker 1: to know the question, am I going to die? This
19:28
Speaker 1: is the next level of the spiral. And he goes
19:30
Speaker 1: back and forth, right? Sometimes he has good days and
19:33
Speaker 1: he convinces himself that he's getting better. Other days he
19:36
Speaker 1: has bad days and he comes to the realization that
19:39
Speaker 1: I'm not getting any better. The treatments aren't working. I
19:43
Speaker 1: am indeed dying. And so this death just continues to
19:48
Speaker 1: haunt him. Um, In fact, there's one chapter in particular
19:51
Speaker 1: that's just very haunting, which also I keep talking about
19:54
Speaker 1: how he would ignore it, but it would keep rising up,
19:57
Speaker 1: it being his realization of his own impending mortality. And
20:02
Speaker 1: so he goes from the spiral of am I sick
20:05
Speaker 1: to I am sick. He goes through the spiral of
20:08
Speaker 1: am I dying to I am dying. And now he's
20:11
Speaker 1: going to go through the deeper existential spiral that's going
20:14
Speaker 1: to lead him to recognize what it is that he is,
20:17
Speaker 1: what it is that he's always wanted to be. And
20:20
Speaker 1: so he begins asking questions like, what is it that
20:22
Speaker 1: I want? And he answers himself and he says, what
20:25
Speaker 1: I want is to be better. What I want is
20:26
Speaker 1: to live. And then he follows up in his own
20:29
Speaker 1: internal monologue. He says, live how? Well, how I've always lived.
20:35
Speaker 1: But then as he says that, That despair starts to
20:38
Speaker 1: rise up and he's starting to think like, wait a minute,
20:41
Speaker 1: how I've always lived, but what I have always lived
20:43
Speaker 1: is absolutely miserable. And he starts thinking back over his life,
20:48
Speaker 1: over every major step that he's taken. And he recognizes
20:51
Speaker 1: like back in school that the groups that he was in,
20:53
Speaker 1: that he wasn't in because he actually wanted to be
20:55
Speaker 1: in those groups or he actually liked those people. He
20:58
Speaker 1: was in the groups that served his advancement in society.
21:01
Speaker 1: He was in the kind of groups that he felt
21:03
Speaker 1: like he ought to be in. And that's how he
21:05
Speaker 1: navigated every step of the social ladder that he just
21:11
Speaker 1: engaged in relationships, the groups, the outings. He did the
21:14
Speaker 1: things that someone needed to do in order to be somebody.
21:18
Speaker 1: And again, if you've read that Hideous Strength, there's some
21:21
Speaker 1: very strong mark static connections here, but eventually he comes
21:24
Speaker 1: to recognize that he hasn't actually been happy. Despite the
21:27
Speaker 1: fact that he's been pretty successful in his career, at
21:29
Speaker 1: least he hasn't really been happy for a very long time,
21:33
Speaker 1: not since childhood, but over time that who Ivan Ilyich
21:38
Speaker 1: is as a person by nature, by nature, I mean
21:41
Speaker 1: like true to what it is that he's supposed to
21:44
Speaker 1: be actually supposed to be as a human, like that
21:47
Speaker 1: gets covered up over time and, through the artificial construct
21:50
Speaker 1: of societal identity. But at this point, he recognizes that
21:55
Speaker 1: he's always yearned for something more. He's yearned for something real.
21:59
Speaker 1: And so he goes from, I'm going to die to
22:02
Speaker 1: what do I want? And now he recognizes what I
22:06
Speaker 1: want is not just to live. What I want is
22:09
Speaker 1: to live well. And so he's trying to deal with
22:13
Speaker 1: what that issue is. And as his disease continues to
22:16
Speaker 1: pick up and he starts to approach the end, Well,
22:18
Speaker 1: now he starts asking the question of what do I want?
22:22
Speaker 1: Not just what do I want, but what should I want, right?
22:25
Speaker 1: Now he moves on to what should I want? So
22:27
Speaker 1: now he's engaging in ethical reasoning. He's putting himself under
22:29
Speaker 1: an ethical standard. And he's recognizing that not all desires
22:33
Speaker 1: are equal, that there's certain things that he should want.
22:37
Speaker 1: And this really develops as he approaches the very end
22:39
Speaker 1: of his life. And we're told that he suffered for
22:44
Speaker 1: three days, that his death was carried out over the
22:48
Speaker 1: course of three days of absolute agony. And that's going
22:51
Speaker 1: to be significant, but we'll probably get more into that,
22:55
Speaker 1: into some of the symbolism here when we talk about
22:57
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyich on the main Mythic Mind podcast later. But
23:00
Speaker 1: he suffers for three days. And then at the end,
23:04
Speaker 1: he starts to recognize that he lived his life the
23:07
Speaker 1: entirely wrong way. And so now that ethical question of
23:11
Speaker 1: what should I want has gone on to I haven't
23:15
Speaker 1: lived in the way that I should have. I haven't
23:18
Speaker 1: wanted the things that I should have wanted. That all along,
23:22
Speaker 1: I've learned I've yearned to be somebody real. I've yearned
23:26
Speaker 1: to be someone authentic. somebody who's capable of noticing himself.
23:31
Speaker 1: I've yearned to be a person, a substantial person, and
23:34
Speaker 1: not just a ghost of societal standing. But I've yearned
23:40
Speaker 1: to be a substantial person. And the Lewis connections are
23:43
Speaker 1: all over, right? There's some strong, great divorce connections here
23:46
Speaker 1: when we talk about the difference between his ghost and
23:49
Speaker 1: the solid spirits. And so he's yearned to be someone solid,
23:52
Speaker 1: not someone illusory. And as he approaches his death, Um, he,
23:59
Speaker 1: he has this, um, literal come to Jesus moment where,
24:02
Speaker 1: you know, that the, this is somebody who hasn't been
24:05
Speaker 1: terribly religious despite living in a religious environment, religious culture.
24:10
Speaker 1: He is not somebody who's been very religious. Um, but
24:13
Speaker 1: right at the end, he, uh, recognizes that he's lived
24:17
Speaker 1: his life in the wrong way, uh, before the eyes
24:19
Speaker 1: of God. And, and he, And he looks at his son,
24:23
Speaker 1: he looks at his wife, really for the first time.
24:26
Speaker 1: And he recognizes that he didn't do right by them.
24:29
Speaker 1: And he tries to say that he's sorry. He tries
24:31
Speaker 1: to say, forgive me. But he can't manage to get
24:35
Speaker 1: the words out. And he consoles himself, saying that it's
24:38
Speaker 1: okay that he couldn't get the words out. Because he
24:41
Speaker 1: who most needed to hear the plea for forgiveness heard it.
24:45
Speaker 1: And so at that point, he's able to stop struggling
24:47
Speaker 1: against death, which is described like, you know, somebody who's
24:50
Speaker 1: throwing a sack over his head and dragging him against
24:52
Speaker 1: his will. Well, no, now he feels peace because there
24:56
Speaker 1: is no death, Tolstoy tells us. He is now able
24:59
Speaker 1: to be received into the fullness of life. And as
25:03
Speaker 1: he dies, the final words that he hears from the
25:05
Speaker 1: room around him are, it is finished. And that's how
25:10
Speaker 1: the story ends. And so what you have here is
25:13
Speaker 1: a man who is but a ghost of a man,
25:16
Speaker 1: but a man who's yearning to be real, yearning to
25:18
Speaker 1: be someone of substance. He's a bad man who wants
25:22
Speaker 1: to be good. Now, he's not bad in the sense
25:25
Speaker 1: of being like a gross villain who's terrorizing the town,
25:29
Speaker 1: but he's a bad man in that he's not what
25:31
Speaker 1: a man is supposed to be. He's not authentic to
25:35
Speaker 1: what it means to be human. He doesn't know who
25:38
Speaker 1: Ivan Ilyich is. He's a bad husband. He's a bad friend.
25:43
Speaker 1: He's a bad father. And so this is, I think,
25:47
Speaker 1: something that Tolstoy does brilliantly in that he demonstrates what
25:52
Speaker 1: a bad man looks like in the everyday. It's not
25:56
Speaker 1: always the gross villain. It's not always the serial killer
26:00
Speaker 1: or the Hitler or the Stalin. No, sometimes a bad
26:04
Speaker 1: man is actually quite ordinary. In fact, he may even
26:07
Speaker 1: be you or me. But despite being a bad man,
26:12
Speaker 1: he's someone who wants to be a good man, but
26:13
Speaker 1: doesn't really know how to do it until the very end. Now,
26:18
Speaker 1: as I was playing through Red Dead Redemption 2, there
26:21
Speaker 1: is a certain point at which Arthur Morgan starts to
26:25
Speaker 1: get sick. And eventually he just collapses in the middle
26:29
Speaker 1: of town and he's dragged off to the doctor where
26:31
Speaker 1: he finds out that he has tuberculosis. And he's told
26:35
Speaker 1: this is serious and that he's probably going to die.
26:38
Speaker 1: And so for the rest of the game, Arthur Morgan,
26:40
Speaker 1: he's dying. And he increasingly comes to recognize the fact
26:43
Speaker 1: that he is dying. And this is why, especially from
26:48
Speaker 1: this point on, the game is so much more compelling
26:51
Speaker 1: when you play an honorable path. Because the story is
26:54
Speaker 1: really trying to push you in this direction. The story
26:57
Speaker 1: is trying to help you recognize what Arthur Morgan is recognizing.
27:01
Speaker 1: That the things that he used to live for, that
27:03
Speaker 1: the things that made him a bad man, That preying
27:06
Speaker 1: on other people. That even seeking to be somebody in
27:11
Speaker 1: this gang that he's been running with. This gang that
27:12
Speaker 1: he's been running with since he was a kid. Something
27:16
Speaker 1: like the only family that he's known. But it's actually
27:18
Speaker 1: a terrible family. That his whole life's been spent trying
27:22
Speaker 1: to be somebody in this gang. Especially to this terrible
27:25
Speaker 1: mentor who plays a father-like role to him. But just
27:30
Speaker 1: that father-like. He's not very fatherly, really. And so Arthur Morgan,
27:35
Speaker 1: he wants to be somebody, but he goes about it
27:37
Speaker 1: in all the wrong ways. He is a bad man
27:40
Speaker 1: who yearns to be something good, but he just doesn't
27:43
Speaker 1: know how to do it. Well, as he increasingly comes
27:46
Speaker 1: to terms with his own mortality, he starts to become
27:50
Speaker 1: a good man. He recognizes that things that he used
27:53
Speaker 1: to want are not what he should have wanted, right?
27:56
Speaker 1: He's able to ask himself, have I wanted the right things?
28:00
Speaker 1: How do I want to live? How should I be living?
28:03
Speaker 1: And so now we get this redemption arc, hence the
28:06
Speaker 1: name of the series, Red Dead Redemption. And so we
28:09
Speaker 1: get this redemption arc where now he starts to yearn
28:13
Speaker 1: for goodness. He starts to get a better sense of
28:15
Speaker 1: what goodness is. Now, this is not a Christian game.
28:18
Speaker 1: It's not explicitly. And so he's not going to have
28:20
Speaker 1: this great conversion experience, although there's some degree of religion
28:23
Speaker 1: that plays into it. But really what you have is
28:26
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan saying, looking at the light that he's led,
28:29
Speaker 1: recognizing he's been a bad man. And now his understanding
28:32
Speaker 1: of goodness is I'm going to start moving in a
28:34
Speaker 1: different direction, the opposite direction of that, which is, I mean,
28:37
Speaker 1: if you don't know what goodness is, that's not a
28:39
Speaker 1: bad way to go about it because I'm an often
28:41
Speaker 1: badness is more easily recognizable than, than goodness. Like, um,
28:46
Speaker 1: I talk about this a lot in, in my philosophy classes,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, when I teach in the public university that,
28:52
Speaker 1: as much as everyone claims to be a relativist, we
28:55
Speaker 1: all recognize gross evil when we see it. We all
28:58
Speaker 1: recognize that it's bad to commit murder. It's bad to
29:03
Speaker 1: do any number of things, right? Push an old lady
29:06
Speaker 1: into the middle of the road. There are a lot
29:08
Speaker 1: of things that everyone recognizes are just bad. And so
29:12
Speaker 1: if we don't have a firm understanding of goodness, as
29:15
Speaker 1: I would propose in moving forward, in the direction of
29:18
Speaker 1: the beatific vision, the font of all goodness. If you
29:20
Speaker 1: don't have that, then at the very least, you can
29:22
Speaker 1: start to move in whatever direction is the opposite of
29:25
Speaker 1: what is clearly bad. That's at least a start. And
29:29
Speaker 1: so that's really what Arthur Morgan does. And it's short
29:34
Speaker 1: of playing the game yourself. It's hard to communicate just
29:38
Speaker 1: what a strong conversation job the writers of this game
29:42
Speaker 1: do in portraying that redemption arc and helping you to
29:45
Speaker 1: really feel it to experience his sense of regret and
29:48
Speaker 1: longing to make things right with the final bits of
29:52
Speaker 1: breath that are quickly being expelled from his lungs not
29:56
Speaker 1: a one-to-one connection between the story of Ivan Ilyich and
29:59
Speaker 1: Arthur Morgan, but I do think that both of them
30:02
Speaker 1: are approaching the same basic archetype of coming to terms
30:05
Speaker 1: with mortality and letting that renew the way that you're
30:08
Speaker 1: engaging with the world around you. There's this medieval phrase,
30:13
Speaker 1: medieval Latin phrase, memento mori, remember that you will die
30:16
Speaker 1: or remember your death. And it's important to always have
30:21
Speaker 1: this reminder in front of us Not in a morbid
30:24
Speaker 1: sense that causes us to forego our responsibilities and our
30:28
Speaker 1: enjoyment in life. But actually, this reminder to embrace the
30:33
Speaker 1: responsibilities and enjoyment we can have in this life because
30:38
Speaker 1: this life is fleeting. In many ways, in the long run,
30:42
Speaker 1: it's already forfeit. And so what we need to do
30:45
Speaker 1: is to redeem that life, redeem that life by living well,
30:51
Speaker 1: redeem that life by being a good person. And I
30:55
Speaker 1: don't just mean that in sort of like a generic subjective,
30:58
Speaker 1: you know, be good according to your, you know, whims
31:01
Speaker 1: of morality. What I mean is live in the way
31:04
Speaker 1: that a person is meant to live. You know, Aristotle
31:07
Speaker 1: would say what that means is you live a life
31:09
Speaker 1: according to reason and virtue, right? The Westminster Catechism says
31:13
Speaker 1: that the chief end of man is to glorify God
31:15
Speaker 1: and to enjoy him forever. And so when I talk
31:18
Speaker 1: about being a good person, what I mean is you
31:21
Speaker 1: fulfill the form of what a person is supposed to be.
31:24
Speaker 1: And I think that this game provides a very strong,
31:29
Speaker 1: a very compelling case for arguing that video games can
31:35
Speaker 1: deal with significant existential issues. significant issues that at the
31:40
Speaker 1: very least approach the literary, or maybe we even want
31:43
Speaker 1: to say that they can echo the literary, that they
31:46
Speaker 1: are artistic endeavors that can connect us to things that
31:50
Speaker 1: are true, good, and beautiful.