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10 - Are Video Games a Waste of Time? Art and Upbuilding Value · 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. Hey there,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: welcome back. Unfortunately we don't have our episode on Mass
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Effect three ready to go. The reality is that right now,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I am just slammed busy. I'm still working on my
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: book that I really need to wrap up as soon
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: as possible. I'm teaching multiple classes. I've got a few
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: new classes coming up this false semester in just a
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  Speaker 1: few weeks, and so I'm just in addition to having
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  Speaker 1: three kids three under, and so my life is just
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: slam busy. I did not have a chance to record
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that conversation yet, hopefully we will get there for next time.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So today what I'm going to do is provide you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: with episode eighty from the main Mythic Mind podcast, as
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I speak with Josh Traylor and Master Samwise, who runs
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a pretty big YouTube channel dealing with some of the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: things that are related to what we do here. In fact,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: he was on the show for Red Dead two not
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: too long ago, and so provide that conversation for you.
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  Speaker 1: This is from March of twenty twenty five. This is
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: when I was just starting to really formulate these ideas
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: about the potential value of video games as an art
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: form and that they may have some kind of upbuilding
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  Speaker 1: utility to them, some kind of real artistic value that
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  Speaker 1: can move us in a positive direction. And so I'm
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: just starting to work on these ideas as I recorded
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: this conversation. I think that we go to some worthwhile
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: places and I hope that you enjoy, and next time
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: we'll try to get some fresh content for you. All right,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get to it. All right, welcome
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: back to Mythic Mind, where today we're gonna do something
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: we haven't done so far on the show, and that's
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about video games. I'm sure we'll get into
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: some specific titles, but you know, really just I want
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  Speaker 1: to to have a broad level conversation of like what
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  Speaker 1: even our video games? You know, is it just a
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  Speaker 1: waste of time? Or is there some value to be
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  Speaker 1: had there? And given that we're having this conversation, I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: guess it's kind obvious where we're going to come down
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  Speaker 1: on that, but you know, it might be helpful to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: start off just by talking a little bit about like
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: like some of some of our background or experience with
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  Speaker 1: games as a medium and as a kid. As a teenager,
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  Speaker 1: I played a good bit, probably more than I should have.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of wish I read a few more books, but nonetheless,
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  Speaker 1: in many ways kind of having not having much of
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  Speaker 1: a literary focus as a kid aside from what I
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  Speaker 1: picked up in school here and there. I do kind
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  Speaker 1: of feel like, looking back, games did kind of fulfill
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  Speaker 1: some of that innate human desire for stories for you know,
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  Speaker 1: entering into other worlds that that's sort of been chanting,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and so I think there's something there that can see
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: looking back. You know, once I went out on my own,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: once I got married, a lot of that sort of
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: dropped off quite a bit. It once I had kids
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: dropped off a lot more to the point where now,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, every once in a while I'll pick up something,
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  Speaker 1: but it's it's usually the same something I've been playing
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  Speaker 1: for ten or more years, because you know, even though
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I picked up a couple of things during a Steam
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: sales not too long ago, the reality is, if I
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  Speaker 1: have a few minutes to pick up a game these days,
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  Speaker 1: I tend to go for familiarity, but I do think
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  Speaker 1: that there's something to this question, like what are games?
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  Speaker 1: What are their value? Does it make sense to bring
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  Speaker 1: them to conversation as a medium with something like literature.
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  Speaker 1: It's what's inspired the fact that you know, later on
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: this year I'm doing that Elder Scrolls and philosophy course,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I'm inclined to have this conversation and I'm interested to
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  Speaker 1: hear what you all have to say. Sam wytn't to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about yourself, about specifically your
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  Speaker 1: relationship with games.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, so, yeah, I have. Honestly I have. For you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm in my early thirties. I have a relatively short
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: relationship with video games as a medium. Not that I
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: haven't played video games for long. I have played video
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  Speaker 2: since I was probably six seven years old, maybe a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: little bit older, but it started out and for probably
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  Speaker 2: the vast majority of my childhood, from about you know,
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  Speaker 2: seven or eight up till sixteen, I probably played backyard
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: baseball or backyard soccer. I'm familiar with those old, old
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  Speaker 2: titles that most likely came in the bottom of cereal box.
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  Speaker 2: Or I played something like roller Coaster Tycoon, where you're
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  Speaker 2: just building and maintaining a theme Park, you know, Lego
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Star Wars also came in a little bit later on. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: once the family computer was up to the task, so
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  Speaker 2: it didn't. I didn't really start playing games more extensively
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  Speaker 2: till I was later in high school, and then I
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: got into I was into things like Call of Duty
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  Speaker 2: and Star Wars Battlefront and a lot of first person shooters,
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  Speaker 2: ones that may may may be are not completely devoid
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  Speaker 2: of value, but certainly just have kind of a more
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  Speaker 2: entertainment usual nature. Again, you can find value in most
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  Speaker 2: anything that isn't just a complete trash, but in those
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  Speaker 2: games are are were anyway generally made with with love
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  Speaker 2: and care, and they the stories they told were were
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  Speaker 2: somewhat solid, but nearly most of the time was just
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  Speaker 2: spent in multiplayers shooting other people who are also shooting
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  Speaker 2: back at me. So it wasn't, honestly until probably after
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  Speaker 2: college the last gosh, how long will be graduated less
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: than a decade that I really started diving into more
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  Speaker 2: of the deeper world of video games. Right, So I've
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  Speaker 2: played you know, Elder Ring after that came out, which
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  Speaker 2: is a huge, vast and dark fantasy world, and you know,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the makers all the dark Souls games, and the last
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: few years I've played the God of War. All the
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: God of War games, and I think the second one,
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  Speaker 2: which were are generally absolutely phenomenal games and they tell
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  Speaker 2: a fantastic story. I finally played Red Dead Redemption to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: this last year, which is hard to beat when it
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: comes to just the depth of the story and the
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  Speaker 2: character development. And I think, what what games have an
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  Speaker 2: advantage over something like, you know, even literature, but certainly
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  Speaker 2: over television and movies is the depth to which they
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  Speaker 2: can go, because it just because they are able to
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  Speaker 2: take all this time. Because television, even television movies especially,
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  Speaker 2: but even TV shows are limited, right, and there is
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  Speaker 2: kind of a set limit on how long they can be.
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  Speaker 2: Even in the age of streaming, where you can really
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  Speaker 2: only be so long, you can only do so much.
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  Speaker 2: Games don't only have that problem. If you look on
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  Speaker 2: my channel, you know the longest my longest videos are
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  Speaker 2: all about video game characters because they you spend so
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  Speaker 2: much more time with them. If you spend twenty hours
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  Speaker 2: or fifty or sixty hours playing through a game, you
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  Speaker 2: spend so much time with this character, you're able to
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  Speaker 2: absorb these little details and then you get a lot
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  Speaker 2: more out of it. So yeah, I think basically that's
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  Speaker 2: kind of my journey with games is it's just in
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the last less than ten years or so where I
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: really come to absorb the value that they can have
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  Speaker 2: in their ability to tell stories. But then there's more
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  Speaker 2: to it than that, And there's a video I'm planning
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  Speaker 2: to do and probably in the distant future at this point.
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  Speaker 2: And how video games cultivate virtue and storytelling is certainly
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  Speaker 2: one way, and the ways in which they can tell
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  Speaker 2: stories that are distinct from books and movies are good
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  Speaker 2: and definitely to be measured, but there are other ways
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  Speaker 2: and that they can teach perseverance. They can teach you know,
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  Speaker 2: explore and they need to the desire to explore and wonder.
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  Speaker 2: They can even teach the logistical thinking and planning and
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  Speaker 2: you know, thinking ahead. And if you take up games
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  Speaker 2: like factory games where you're planning and building you know,
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  Speaker 2: a factory, you're collecting resource. They're all sorts of ways
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  Speaker 2: which games can build us. It's they're fascinating basically.
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  Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, a lot there. I've got a lot of
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  Speaker 1: follow up questions, but first let's let's stop over to
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  Speaker 1: Josh tell us a little bit about your experience with
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  Speaker 1: video games.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, man, Yeah, I think I'm a little bit more
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: in European and drew where you said that you feel
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  Speaker 3: like you played a lot of video games and maybe
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  Speaker 3: even a little bit too much at times and wish
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  Speaker 3: you would have read more. That's like in the exact
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: summary of like the first like twenty something odd years
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  Speaker 3: of my life. So yeah, for me, I actually like
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  Speaker 3: pretty much have played since basically as long as I
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  Speaker 3: can remember before because my dad was like in his
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: twenties when like the og like Nintendo and all that
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: came out in the eighties, and so when I was
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: born in the mid nineties, like he already had like
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Sega Genesis and was a Super Nintendo eventually Nintendo sixty
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: four PS one Dreamcast. So I really like cut my
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  Speaker 3: teeth on all of that stuff like that nineties gaming,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: even though I was extremely little in the second half
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: of the nineties when I was a toddler, but really
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: from there kind of like got more. I definitely like
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  Speaker 3: stuck with like the Nintendo a lot and wasn't really
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  Speaker 3: allowed to play like a lot of like the emerated
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: games at the time, So I would probably good good
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: decisions on my parents probably for that one. So played
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: like a lot, played like a lot of game game
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: played like a lot of them sixty four. Eventually I
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: got like more into like the Microsoft like Xbox three
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: sixty stuff when I was in middle school, in high
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: school eventually kind of like got into uh, I was
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: super into Halo at one point, Like those games were great,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: and I thought that they had exceptional writing as well.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I really, I mean I've played a lot
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: of different stuff, probably all the way up until my
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  Speaker 3: early twenties and then just it's not like I never
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: like lost interest or like saw there as like I
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: never really really with a phase where even where I
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: thought like video games were like stupid or pointless or
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: a waste of time, I would say, and I would
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: certainly still argue against all of those claims to this day.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I think I just like I started to interest in
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  Speaker 3: other things more probably that I didn't spend time on
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  Speaker 3: growing up, like you know, music and eventually like reading
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  Speaker 3: as well, So probably like distanced myself a little bit
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: more so when I my knowledge of gaming early spans
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: from stuff from like the late nineties probably too roughly
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: like the mid twenty teens. So I'm pretty I'm I'm
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: a good like decade out of the loop, I would
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: say with a lot of things. The only one of
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: the only early RPG games I played in the past
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: ten years is Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven, which I definitely
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: have things to say if it comes up. But yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: pretty much like a long story short that's like kind
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: of like the broad kind of like the broad sweeping
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: overview of really my experiences.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like you said, we have some similar
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: stories there. I feel like the newest game that I
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: still play on a somewhat regular basis is probably like
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Fallout four something like it goes goes back a little
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: bit at this point. You know, one thing that I've
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: been thinking about because you know, I've over the last
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: few years, I've really been going through a renaissance as
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I've really discovered literature for the first time. It took
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: me to almost finishing my PhD before I recognized the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: value of reading fiction. And at that point it just
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I just started reading everything I keep my hands on,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: and it really reshaped the way that I view just
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: about everything really, especially you know, it really started with
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: with Tolkien and then you know, getting into his unfairy
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: stories and sort of his philosophy of myths and that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: sort of thing. And you know, that's allowed me to
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: look back on some of the games that really stood
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: out to me, especially in my youth, and recognize that
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  Speaker 1: maybe they're not just a waste of time. I definitely
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: went through that phase where I felt like, you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: it is just escape, But as Tolkien says, escape is
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: part of the process of recovery, and so I do
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: believe there's some value there. But at the same time
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I'm working through this in real time. I I wonder
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: how much the games are just fun or there's an
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: amusement factor, and then I want to justify value into it,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: into the story. I don't know, is that a do
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you think it's a temptation when we talk about like,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, Sam, you're talking about how we can discover
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: virtue and video games and you know different positive lessons,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Like do you have any comment on that, like how
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: much is that real? And how much are we trying
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to justify something?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I would say that if you are finding value
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: in something, then the value exists, right, And I've done
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: this with an any number of things. I can you know,
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  Speaker 2: you can read value into most anything, right, I would say,
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  Speaker 2: it's how does it actually change you?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: If you know, if I am playing you know, Dark
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  Speaker 2: Souls and I'm like, oh, this is this is teaching
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  Speaker 2: me persistence. But you know then I don't actually persist
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  Speaker 2: in my life when it matters. No, it's not really
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  Speaker 2: teaching me persistence. It's not really changing, it's not really
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  Speaker 2: enriching that virtue in me. It's just me. That is
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: just me justifying it absolutely. But I have seen multiple
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: testimonies on that game, specifically about people saying like this
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: saved my life. Right where people if you go on
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: if you go on YouTube and search you know, dark Souls,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: search Dark Souls saved my life, you will find I'm
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: sure no shortage of of videos of people saying that
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: they were in a dark place they felt hopeless and helpless, right.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: They they had felt like they had no no, no power, right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: they couldn't do anything. And then they picked up Dark
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Souls and the game if you haven't played it, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: it beats you over the head quite literally. It beats
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: you down repeatedly, over and over and over again. The
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: game is designed unless you you know, really go out
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: of your way to make it easy for yourself, which
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: you can do, but it is designed to kill you repeatedly.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: The one of the versions that came out on PC
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: any I'm not sure if this original version is called
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Dark Souls Prepared to Die. And the game tells you
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: right away like you're going to die, and you're going
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to die a lot, and all you can do is
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: get better. I mean that's it. You can yeah, sure,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: you can do various things to do that, right, but
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: the main thing is simply getting better at the game,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: learning the boss's attack patterns, learning when to attack, when
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: not to attack, learning when it's time to change your
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: own weapon or your build, your strategy. And it teaches
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: people to have an internal attribution where they say, Okay,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: this failure is clearly just my fault, right, and the
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: only thing I can do about it is change, because
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the game's not going to change. Right. When we think
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: about this in the wider world, I think people want
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: society to change. They want other people to change for them, right.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: This is a huge problem in culture today, where everyone
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: has an external attribution. Right, the things that have happened
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to me aren't my fault. You might be right about that,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: but what are you going to do about it? Right,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: So we need to have more of like an internal attribution.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: That's what Dark Souls teaches through repeatedly crushing your skull in.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: It teaches you to look inward and say, Okay, where
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: am I failing? What do I need to do to
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: get out of this? To get past this boss. It's again,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: it's a very small thing where it's that you could
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: just it can be contained within the world of the game. Right,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: if you learn that lesson in Dark Souls and you
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: don't apply it to your life, I mean, yeah, that's
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: that's what most people might very well do. But for
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: these people right who actually let it change them, I mean,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: then it changed them, it did something meaningful. So yeah,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: again it is it is with most mediums. Video games
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: are simply about how you approach them right. Intentionality is huge.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I can watch the most prof I could read the
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: most profoundly philosophical book on the planet. But if I
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: do it just because I want to say that I've
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: read the most profoundly philosophical book on the planet, who cares?
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  Speaker 2: What good is that? What has that changed me?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: So I think that's you know, that's the big piece
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: when it comes to games, and I know you've pointed
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: this out, Andrew in a situit of yours said, thank you.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: How we approach them, our intentionality, that's what matters. So
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: if you find good in something, sorry I've branly anchelong,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I'll stop myself here. If you find good in something,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: you actually let that good affect you, then it's real.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's very well said. I mean, it
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: is just like anything that if you are pursuing it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: for the sake of discovering wisdom, then you're likely to
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: find it. Whereas if you are pursuing it just for
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the sake of justifying the wrong kind of escape that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: obviously at that point it's a vice. But then it's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the fault of the medium. It's the fault
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: of the player, the one participating in it. Yeah, I
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: think that's that's very very well said. Josh. You do
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on that, on you know, discovering wisdom,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: on you know, how video games can potentially serve you know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a positive role, what kind of wherever you want to
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: go with that?
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean I certainly agree with everything you just said,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: and I appreciate the the nods and mentions to Dark Souls,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: because that was certainly, you know, one of the series
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: that's certainly like one of the only series that really
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: played a lot in like my adult life, and that's
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: like one of my I always go back to this
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: kind of game, certainly not always for relaxation, because it's
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: hard to relax and play Dark Souls even if your
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: experience sometimes it's still challenging and frustrating even when you
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: when you fail. But another thing I want to like
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: say with Dark Souls specifically is there was what actually
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: drew me into that game. It was, Yes, it was
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: the challenge, it was the difficulty. But the best word
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I could use kind of describe the world and the
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: lore and the aesthetics of Dark Souls is enchanting, to
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: be honest. And it's the same thing that I think
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: any one of us could find enchanting about the best
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: of like the fantasy genre. Right, whether you're talking about
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: the great works of the Middle Ages or you're talking
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: about Tolkien or maybe even some of the the contemporary
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: later modern works that uh that came after Tolkien, Right,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: there's something enchanting about these worlds that are that we
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: don't see around us necessarily, but there is there is
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: there is an enchanting reality within the world, and it
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: awakens and illuminates our imaginations in this this special way
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: that we can't maybe you can't even always fully explain
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: in a sense. And that was that was really stood
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: out for me. And one thing I'd describe myself as
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: is so like I always I've thought about this a lot,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and sometimes I knew a lot of guys that were
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: like into like army men growing up, right, Like they
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: like were like obsessed with like World War two and
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, And there's like nothing wrong with that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: I think that's great, and there's a lot of wonder
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: to that as well. But I always describe myself as
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: a kid who was more into like knights and swords
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: than like army men and like rifles. Not I'm not
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: going to say one is better than the other, but
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: that was just like my draw So I think something
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: like Dark Souls was enchanting, but it was almost like
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: enchanting in an adult way, whereas when I was in
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: a kid, the world and war and mythos of the
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Legend of Zelda was super enchanting to me as a kid.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: I still think it's interesting and chanting as as a
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: thirty year old, by the way, So I'm not going
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: to say it's it's child it's it's cs Lewis right.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: It's like you you love childish things, then you don't
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: love childish things, and you grow up and you will
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: love childish things again, right, Like It's like that's like
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: kind of like how I would think of like Legend
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of Zelda, but Dark Souls is not for kids. It
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: is for adults, but it's it's enchanting is a totally
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: different way. And I mean you just want to talk
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: about like how like I've never seen outside of like
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: a fantasy book series or like some of the old
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Icelandic or you know, arthury in English tales. It's like
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: outside of some of that, I haven't really seen anything
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: else with such a rich war and uh, just like
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: story behind it, but the story is not on the nose,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: you know, it's not explicit like get to learn it,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: don't get to kill things and read artifacts and put
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: the pieces together, and honestly, then watch hours and hours
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: and hours of basically Dark Soul scholars on YouTube to
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: really actually understand what's going on and there's a lot
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: of meaning there, like long story short like it's it's
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: it's profound, right, And I think sometimes people can even
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: play Dark like in the Dark Soul series, just for
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: the challenge, and that's great, and maybe they subconsciously reap
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: some of the imaginative and philosophical aspects of that in
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: a way. But I think, like even just to play
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: it for the challenge of supreme refined melee combat is
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: still like missing out on all like the richness of
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: meaning written into those games and designed into those games.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So you've both talked about Dark Souls a good bit,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: which I've actually never played Dark Souls. I'm not super
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: familiar other than just seeing, you know, glimpses here and there.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So I mean it might provide a good case study here,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: like what in particular is so enchanting about it? And
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: neither of you can take that.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Up, So I'm not I haven't really gotten deep into
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the laure yet of Dark Souls. I'm still on my
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: first play through of the original game. I've played a
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: couple of other from software same to all for titles,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: one being Eldering. It's just the most recent release, well,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the most recent Souls, like release anyway, I'm just come
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: back and came out twenty twenty two. It has a
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: similar sort of gene where it's this dark fantasy setting,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the world's kind of trap to this cyclical cycle where
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: no one really dies, and it was like the tarnished
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and eld Ring of the Undead, And in Dark Souls,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: we're kind of just kind of this cyclical cycle to
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: life which you're a little bit seeking to break. So
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: there's you know, so that you could go into. You
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: could probably teach a whole course just on that concept
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: right where it's just like you've basically created immortality and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: you're realizing how awful it truly is. But even without
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: having you know, it's like, as we're having this conversation, like, oh,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: that's right, I keep meaning to go on YouTube and
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: like Josh said, find the you know, watch a Foddy
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: video or whoever else is doing the videos on all
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the Dark Soul, the Dark Soul's lower deep dives. But
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: one of the things that really stands out to me
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: that is most enchanting in Dark Souls you spend a
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: good amount of time underground, or at least in very
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: dark places, and there are moments where you see sunlight.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Like there's there's a whole long section of the game
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: where you're going through is essentially the Sewers, and it's
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: fairly early on and then you you finally end up
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: in the boss room and there's this big crack in
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: the ceiling essentially where sunlight shining through. And it makes
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: me think of the scene of the Two Towers and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: in Aderas where they see the described in the book
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: as you know, the single high window through you know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: sunlight shining through. And then that same theme comes back
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: with a single star that Sam seeds as he's on
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: the I think it's the planes of Gorgoroth, And you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: it's just kind of this message like not all is dark. Right,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: You've been going through this incredibly dark, depressing area and
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: even as you're about to take on this giant you know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: dragon like boss, right, you still see this this beam
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: of light coming in that kind of tells you there
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: there is hope here, there is an end.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: You're you know, you're about to take on a very
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: difficult fight, but you know you have something to look towards,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and that's you know, just I love being able to
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: kind of imburse myself in that world old and even
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: not knowing that much yet, you know, not having read
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: every item description, and you know, I ever looked up
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: every enemy on the wiki. Just seeing this and seeing
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: what it's I think it's trying to tell me. Yeah,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: it's super super cool.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah, I definitely appreciate those themes, the immortality as
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: well as the light. It definitely makes you think of Tolkien,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: so a lot of the stuff that he deals with,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: which I mean naturally anything fantasy I'm gonna read talking
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: into it. Oh that's gonna makes sense, not not without
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: merit on that. Okay. Cool. So yeah, my expansive fantasy
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that that I've lived in for years now, regarding video
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: games at least, really goes to Elder Scrolls, which I know, Sam,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you just recently started Skyrim for the first time, right,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: which I don't. I don't know how to dodge that.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I I mean, I've heard of Skyri. I think I
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: heard about Skyrim the year it came out, because I
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: would have been right along when I started college, and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: thank goodness, I didn't play it started playing it then
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: because I don't think I would have graduated, and i've
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I have not I've barely dipped my toes in because
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I I was staying up with with our newborn, and
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I find I bought it recently when it was finally
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: bought it when it was like four dollars on Steam,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, I hooked my my laptop
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: that I have for gaming on up to our TV.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting there with my my sleeping newborn on a
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: lap at two in the morning or whatever, and like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: all right, I'll start playing Skyrim. And so, I mean,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: like I said, I've barely dipped my toes in. There's
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: not even much I can formulate about, you know, my
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: thoughts about the world yet, unfortunately, because it's like, okay,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm just starting to you understand kind of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the the world building that that's going on here. So
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I wish, I wish I could tell talk more about it,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: but unfortunately, just not much yet.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Fair enough. I had to ask, it's it's unusual you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: find somebody today who's playing Skyrim for the first time.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: It was such a you know, such a major title. Yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And I started with the Elder Scrolls all the way
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: back with morrowind which was I mean a little bit
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of answer from you, you know, when it first came
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: out that given you know, my age at the time,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: but I had older brothers since I was always playing
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit ahead of most people my age of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the time. But I mean, speaking of just vast enchanting worlds,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it still boggles my mind that, you know,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: within each of these major Elder Scrolls titles, I mean,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: they have literally entire books, like libraries of books written
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: within the games. And so the fact that you know
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they are willing to, you know, invest the time in
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: writers to literally write books in the game, most of
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: which are going to go unread by you know, those
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: are those who are buying the titles. It just I
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: think shows a level of detail which you know, unfortunately,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: moving forward, I imagine all such things will just be
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: AI generated. But at least once upon a time, you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that really took the time to, you know, invest in
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: such little storytelling details that you know, it's easy for
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: me to look at a title like that as well
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: as whatever comparable fantasy series are out there, Dark Souls, whatever,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and it's easy for me to look at that and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: recognize the potential for enchantment, the potential for kind of
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: expanding your engagement with kind of with ideas, with philosophy,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: with with kind of what could be. I do think
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that there's a lot of inherent value in that, well,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I guess, I mean from here it it'd be interesting
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to hear about, you know, some other titles that have
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: sort of captured your imagination, that have captured your time,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and just to dig into a little bit about what
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: it is about these particular titles that stand out to you. So,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, Josh, what's something else that has been uh,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you know, near and dear to you.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll run with this one first, just because I
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: mentioned it earlier and I think it really is like
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: the only besides Okay, if it's a lie, I did
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: play elden Ring. I was gonna say, this is the
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: only game I've played that's come out since twenty twenty,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: but not elden Ring, but Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven. I
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: wanted to talk about that, and I don't know if
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: i'd I definitely wouldn't exactly use the word enchanting to
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: describe it, but I also think that's kind of the
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: point and what I like about Cyberhook twenty seventy seven.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, like the writing is an
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: incredible great character arcs, great dialogue back and forth between
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: like your the protagonist in which you play, and the
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: various recurring like side quest characters that he encounters in
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Knight City, in the outskirts of Night City, which is
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: the setting of the game. But I think what's really, uh,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: what's really profound about that game is that it almost,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: to me, it almost captures, it almost captures like a
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: fairly realistic version of like what the future could be
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: in a sense, because grow I liked the I liked
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Star Trek growing up, and I guess like to some extent,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I still do like the next generation and even like
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Deep Space nine to some extent. But one thing I
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: kind of like abandoned when I got older is I
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: found out like Gene rowden Berry's kind of like conception
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: of the future just super like utopian, and it's like
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: everything's going to be super diplomatic with all these aliens,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: and like everything looks crisp all the time, like their
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: uniforms are always perfectly h you know, perfectly like steamed
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: and pressed and all that. But the ship is like
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: the ship is beautiful and there's nothing it's a very
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: like glorified depiction of like the progression of science beyond
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: the time that will probably all you know, on the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: time that we'll probably all live up to, right like
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: like hundreds of years in the future. Whereas with cyberpunk,
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the future looks it looks kind of it looks kind
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: of gross, right Like, I don't know if it either
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: of you ever been to like Times Square in New
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: York City And I always heard about it and thought
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: it would sounded cool as a kid, and I went
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: for the first time a couple of years ago, and
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I thought it was kind of gross. It's like there's
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: just a bunch of weird characters walking around in the
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: middle of the day and there's just big giant screens
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: with not beautiful images on them in any sense, And
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: that's that's kind of like what side like the vibe
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: of cyberpunk twenty seventy seven is. And people are people
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: are kind of gross in it in the sense too.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: But I think what it really captures more than anything
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: is kind of like the ramifications of one like taking
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: like technology and science too far as humans probably the
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: over alliance on science and technology and the way in
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: which are kind of like just our human condition is
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: kind of put on display even more so because of
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: technology and how the things that I've always been there
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: for all of human history, like since the Fall especially,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: have been have been prevalent and real, But there's a
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: way in which technology and the evolution of science and
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: like the the data network and the rapidness of communication
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: puts that on like full display, and the way that
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: that's even modified as people are basically, you know, at
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: this point, like half robot and like you know, part human,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: part robot, having implants and all these things asking the
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: questions even like basically anthropological questions regarding like what actually
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: is a human? And are you still human or fully
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: human if you have these implants. It really deals with
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: all of those things really wonderfully, and I'm I'm trying
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: to hit it all here, so I'm kind of randing
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: and speed talking through it a little bit just to
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: hit the high points. But I can't recommend that game
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: enough because it's not necessarily beautiful, but it's meaningful and
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: it really I think, asks a lot of thought provoking
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: questions and explores them quite nicely.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that one's been on my Steam wish list for sure.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like waiting for it to go and sale or something,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: just waiting to find the time. But yeah, whenever I
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: you know, I see people or right, I see like
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: ads or people, YouTube videos, whatever, people at the whatever
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: apples apples headset, you know, ar VR headset that's like
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: just wear this while you're cooking dinner and stuff or whatever.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Interact to your family with a yes, I see cyberpocket.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I think of that, and yeah, okay, that's definitely a
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: future we feel like we're creeping closer towards.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Also, if you like, if you have any like affinity
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: for Kean or Reuse whatsoever. His likeness is like one
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: of the main characters in the game and he's a
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: huge jerk. So it's really funny.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really are ciate what sci fi can do
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: in presenting just the warnings against well science progress technology.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You know. I mean, I've I've always felt that anybody
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: with any kind of sense of things recognizes where technology
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: can go amiss. But I mean, after reading you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Lewis's Rainsom series, that that really put me on you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the scientists or the demon possessed villains behind closed Doors here. Uh.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about those books is the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the ending, especially that the epilogues of like Out of
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the Silent Planet, for example, where you know, at the end,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Lewis basically comes out and says, oh, by the way,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: this stuff is real. Now, now go cast down the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: demonic scientists. And you know that I saw that article
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: coming out a few years ago about how Lord of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: the Rings is radicalizing. But nothing is as straightforward as
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Lewis's epilogues in those books against science. But yeah, I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: mean my go to dystopian look at the future is
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: definitely Fallout and I know that super mainstream, but you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I've been on board since Fallout three. New Vegas especially
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: played a lot of Fallout four. All the New Vegas
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: is definitely the best game objectively, but and even the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: show I think was done really well in tune with
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the spirit of the games, where you know it is
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: we're obviously in this disaster scenario. You know, civilization has
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: been destroyed, We're dealing with the remnants that are left,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and everything is just gross and mean and dirty, but
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you know, there's still these glimmers of goodness, glimmers of hope,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: this reminder that life does go on, Life can go
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: on even when everything externally is stripped away, and I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: actually think that, especially as you can expect Amazon to do,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I felt like they decently maintained this with the show
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: in that you know, even like Lucy, the main character,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: part of her story is you know, she's like the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: bright character in the Wasteland. You know, she always has
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: this positive attitude. She even you know, maintains fidelity to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the Golden Rule. You know, that's a kind of an
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: ongoing theme here, even you know too well people who
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: aren't very nice to her. It's a again, is it
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: like a Christian franchise? No, certainly not. However, I do
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: think that there is just some of that resilience of life,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: resilience of goodness that can be found through I mean this,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you know, post apocalyptic retro future look at things. And
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: so that's that's that's my go to, you know, dystopian
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: franchise of choice, Sam tell us about. You can either
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: comment on any of that or just go off on
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: something else.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Army. I need to both play Fallout. I have New
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Vegas in my library, but I need to. And then
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: I actually want to want to watch the show because
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I wanted to. I probably wouldn't wanted to include in
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: a video that I'm gonna make in the future. But
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: so again, it's another series that I'd like to explore.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: And yeah, when you talk about, you know, franchise, is
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: that most any franchise is not going to be a
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Christian franchise or a Christian story. You know, even Lord
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: of the Rings is not. It is it is very
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: much Christian, but it is not. It is not a sermon,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: it is not a homily. Right, And that's I've said
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: this many times. I will say it many more times.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Christian movies generally suck because they don't care enough about
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the movie part. Right, They're trying to communicate their message
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: to a to a broader audience by making a movie.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: This is what Hollywood has been doing, just from the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: opposite end of the faith spectrum, where they don't really
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: have much faith. They don't really have much morals for
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: the most part. They just kind of have a vague sense.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I mean it's like Marxist morals basically, where it's like, yeah,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: these people are pressed, we're gonna need to make sure
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: we support them until they become the present. It's like, anyhow,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: this is what Hollywood's done. They've they've forgotten a lot about,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: you know, especially big mainstream Disney forgotten about the movie part,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: the art right, the telling a story in a way
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: that no one else can, and they just want to
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: tell people things just doesn't work anyhow. That's that's my
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: little stellbuck. So when you talk about you know, movie
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: or movies, franchises, games, whatever, being Christian, most of them
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: are not going to be. But there Peter Criefton Is
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: in Philosophy of Tolkien repeats this phrase from one of
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Tolkien's letters at least twice. I'm halfway through the book
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and he's repeated it at least twice, where Tolkien says,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: you know that you know more important, or at least
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: the objective of you know, something like Lord of the
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Rings is the elucidation of truth, right, the encouragement of
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: good morals by showing them in these you know, real
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: but fantastic ways, right with these characters. So that's, you know,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: whenever I'm approaching and analyzing some media, which is what
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I do on the channel, right, I analyze it from
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: a Christian perspective, but from the more from the lens
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: of virtue and you know, growing to you know, growing
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: in virtue growing in love of others. Anyhow, so I
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: ended talking about actual games that I actually care about.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Were you about to say something, Agrew, Yeah, I just.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Can say that. I mean, the Christian way of viewing
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: anything is to find truth wherever it is and to
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: recognize it as such. You know, it goes only back
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to Justin Martyr, right, I have an old truth is
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: God's truth wherever it can be found, and so I
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: definitely agree with you on that. I mean, the way
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: that Tolkien goes about writing his story is he told
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the story he had to tell, then he looked back
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and said, oh, I wrote a Christian story. That's what
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: he basically says to one of his letters, and so yeah,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just echoing what you said. You can continue.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: So tying into that, it would be the games that
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: have Two of the games that have captured my attention
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: in the last few years are the God of War games,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: so specifically the more recent too so one came out
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, which is called God of War even though
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: it is really God of War four, and then God
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: of War Ragnak, which came out twenty twenty two. I
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: believe so their continuation of the original God of War
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: PlayStation games, you know one, two, and three and a
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: couple in between, which followed the tale. If you're not
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: familiar of Krados, who is a made up character, He's
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: a son of He's a son of Zeus, because who
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: in Greek tales isn't a son of Zeus? Who basically
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: who's a wife and who is tricked into killing his
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: own wife and child in his battle lost by aries,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: and in revenge she ends up tearing down all of
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Olympus and throwing all of Grease into chaos. And then
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: he attempts to what's the word that you have to
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: use to be algorithmically collect he attempts to unlive himself,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and that's where God of War three ends. Follow up,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: you catch up with him a decade plus later in
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: God of War four in the in the reboot, and
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: he's now it's now he's now in Norse mythology, so
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: he is has found a new life. He is, you know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: married a Nordic woman, a giant as we found out
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: find out, and had a son who's I think about nine, nine, ten,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: eleven years old in the first game, and the first
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: game begins with his wife's funeral and him having to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: figure out how to raise this kid to be a father,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to be a good father when he never really had
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: that example, and his struggles with his past, right, his
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: struggle with forgiving himself right, finding you know, redemption just
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: for himself, right, That is a huge, huge theme, right, obviously,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: someone who's who's done horrible, horrible deeds in the past
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: finding for self, forgiveness and redemption. That remains a theme
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: throughout both of the reboot games. And so those stories
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: absolutely captured my attention because, especially as a father myself,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: even though my kids are a bit younger, just struggling
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: with you know, whatever struggles I may have, and how
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I really do not want to pass on my own
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: faults and flaws to my kids, you know, seeing him,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: you know, grow in humility, right and meaning that in
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: the very truest way where he learns to know himself
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: in his place right. But yeah, forgiveness and redemption by
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: far the largest largest themes in those stories, and that's
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: again it's a very Christian message, even if the developers
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: are probably partly not Christian. Certainly the studio as a
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: whole is not explicitly Christian, but that's kind of Christianity's
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: whole thing. So and it's but it is beautiful and
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: it's one of the one of the things that even
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: people who aren't Christian they can realize that, right, because
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: it is just an obvious truth if you just tell
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: people that, yeah, you can't change what's done, right, you
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: have to move on. At the near the end of
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: one of the last games, not to spoil it too much,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: but one of the one of the characters says to Credos,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: don't you know what I've done? And Creatos responds responds, yes,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: but what will you do now? And that plays over
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: and over and over in my head because that's it, right,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: because I certainly have the temptation to look back on
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: what I've done, whether it was five minutes ago or
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: a year ago, and go, what was I thinking? What's
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: wrong with me? And you know the answer is who cares?
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: What are you going to do now? Oh? That's definitely
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: on the more story spectrum of the you know, the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: games that have really captured my attention. There's lots of others,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: many far less story driven, but for the sake of brevity,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: all kind of there for now.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Well good, I mean that, you know, final thought that
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: you left off with there. I mean, it reminds you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: what you said at the beginning of the conversation regarding
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the you know, persistency of dark souls, and that you
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: know it presents the scenario of Okay, get to deal
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: with what's in front of you, and you know figured
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: it out essentially, you know. In in one of my
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: one of my philosophy classes, my students recently read Victor
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Frenkle's Man Search for Meaning, in which you know Frankel
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: was a psychiatrist Holocaust survivor comes out writing the book
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: on how he maintained a life of meaning even in
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the camps, and he makes the point that a lot
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: of times we ask the question of like, what is
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the meaning of life? And I mean, I think that's
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: perfectly valid question. However, he reframes that and says, what
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: we also need to be asking ourselves is what is
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: life demanding of me? That's a different kind of question.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: A lot of times we ask the question what is
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: the meaning of life? We even though again as a
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Christian like I have answers to that, but I feel
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: like a lot of times when we ask that question,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: we make it so abstract as to hide from any
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: responsibility that might come from the answer, Whereas if we
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: ask the question like, what do I actually need to
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: do today? What are my responsibilities today? What do I
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: do in light of the things that I've done yesterday?
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Like given the facticity of what's before me, what do
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I do with that? And I think that's the least
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: tengentially related to you know, some of what we brought
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: up there, Josh, do you have any experience with those games?
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I do not.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Those are games that when they first came out, I
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: was a little bit younger and I wasn't allowed to
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: play them again, probably a good decision by my parents
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: at the time two thousands, I think so. But I
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: have been recommended those most those two most recent God
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: of Horror games, not just by one friends, not just
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: by two, but probably at least three or four friends now.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: So that's probably a sign that, uh, I do need
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: to visit those next time I play a new game.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: See what are you guys say something like I.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Shifted no no, the original God of War games, which
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I played when I was making my first video on Kraados.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I played the I played Got Got of War one
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: and three, and they were they are very very violent,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: and the latter games are too, honestly, so, I mean
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Credos is it's it's very much fantasy violence. So you know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: the enemies are largely you know, fantasy characters. You know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: fantasy monsters, so you know Dragger right, undead, you know undead,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: you know form, you know zombies basically or you know,
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: wear wolf like creatures or whatever. You know, one of
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: which you know, Kratos is you know finishing move, will
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: grab the things jaw and rip it in half, right,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Just there's a character who exclaims that'll hot my dreams
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: when he does that, and it makes for some funny moments,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: but it's they're rather brutal, right, they're they're embrated games,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: and they they treat Creatos as the hulking spartan you know,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: you know god that he is, So yeah, not not
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: good game for cure kids. They're a little they get
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: a little rough, for sure, But yeah, I add me
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: to the list of people who wholeheartedly recommends them. In
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: terms of scope, for you know a lot of modern games,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: they're not horribly long. The first one is maybe twenty hours,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: the second is I think I finished it at under
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: thirty especially because I don't. I didn't bother playing in
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: a higher difficulty, uh, because I wanted to experience the story.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Those are very very good, very well done games. The
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: writing is excellent.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just now that you brought up violence, I
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: should say that, you know, I don't. I don't know
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: all of you know who's watching and listening to this,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and so don't. Uh well, you know, I endorse fall
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Out a little bit ago. Speaking of violence, the show
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: games grossly violent, like over the top, campy level of violence,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: which doesn't really bother me because it's like so over
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the top. But that's definitely something you have to be
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: okay with if you're going to engage at all with
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: anything related to that franchise. Now, as far as okay,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: another game of choice that I can bring up here,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: you know, in addition to Elder Scrolls, Fallout one that
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I find myself returning to on a fairly regular basis,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: even still at least every couple of years or so.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Knights of the Old Republic Right definitely top tier Star
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Wars games, top twer RPGs in general. I think that
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: this is just an era of Star Wars history lore
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that's so rich for storytelling. It's back when Star Wars
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: maintained obvious differences between good and evil. The Jedi are good,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the Sith or evil. And I think that that is
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: just so so much more compelling from a story level,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: as well as accurate philosophically. And you know, I well,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: like most things, you know, you go back in history
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot more to deal with and well,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the modern storytelling, I'll put it that way.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: I'm really glad you mentioned this because there's like, I
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: don't know enough people who have played those games, and
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: it kind of it bothers me. Sometimes nothing against people
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: who haven't played them, but I want more people to
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: play those games, especially people who are you know, fans
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: of Star Wars, people who are you know, maybe a
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: controversy of the real fans of Star Wars, you know,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: people who respect the original trilogy and you know, hate
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: the sequels and such things. Right, But that I always
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: what I like wanted what I wanted when like they
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: like announced the Force Awakens, right, episode seven, Force Awakens,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: that's what it was called whatever it was like ten
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: ten eleven years ago when they announced that, when they
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: were like saying they were making a sequel, trilogy to
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Star Wars. It's like going in the direction that like
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Kotor was, is like what I wanted them to do, right,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: especially like the second game where it's like you really
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: have like Krays almost like this like Nietzschean like Zara
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Thirstra like type of figure who's kind of like challenging
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: you to It's almost like they could be like taken
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: as like deconstructionists in some way, of like the Jedi
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: in the Sith and I guess it kind of is
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: in some ways, but in some ways she presents like
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: this this via media like really like gray path between
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: the two. In some sense, she's like kind of just
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: like hates the four all together and wants it to die.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: But all those are really interesting ideas to explore in
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: Star Wars, right, And one of my I've been I've
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: been watching the Star Wars original trilogy since like before
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: I can even remember, right, So I'm talking to somebody
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: who has been a fan of those movies my entire life,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: and I think, like the thing I noticed like when
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I got when I grew older and got a little
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: more mature with Star Wars is like I like the
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: writing and the original trilogies I like the stories, I
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: like all the character arcs, and I more than like,
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: I love the world of Star Wars. Like the original
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Star Wars is just a really cool world, like a
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: lot of the design of you know, the different characters,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: the different races, the different planets, like the the the
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: escapes of like the cities and the deserts and the
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: jungles like all of that, Like it's it's a really
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: cool world. The Jedi is a really cool idea, you know,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: basically these kind of like monastic nights with laser swords.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: In a sense like that, that's a really cool idea, right,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: And it was in a sense, like probably in some
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: ways really original in its time. But the problem I've
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: always seen with Star Wars until like besides like really
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: with Kotor, is that they have a great foundation that
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: they never really built off of. The original trilogy set
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: up so much there that could be explored with literature,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: with philosophy, with a lot of interesting ideas and dynamics
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: and character arcs, and then you know, I'm not going
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: to really talk about the prequels because we could just
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: talk about all the memes and the acting and the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: script and all of that. But with the sequels. I
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: feel like there was a real opportunity there with honestly
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: some quality actors, some big name Hollywood directors. Maybe you know,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: jaj Abrams could have done better. Maybe he could have
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but those ideas, like I wanted them
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: to explored so bad in episode eight, it really seemed
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: like with the trailer and like the hype up to
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: that it could they could have explored some of these
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: ideas from like Kotor one or Kotor two in it.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: And then it was just kind of a schlockfest, to
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: be honest, I'm just gonna say it, like it just
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: it just was. And they didn't do any of that
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: with with like Luke, they didn't do any of that
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: with with Ray or Kylo Red or any of these people,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: and it was it was a huge disappointment. But well,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: all that to say that, like Kotar one and two
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: are the Star Wars story that like I always dreamed of,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: but has never been told on a screen or even
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: in a book. Necessarily, it's in these semi obscure video
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: games from the original Xbox, which a lot of people
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: didn't even really play in the early mid two thousands,
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: and they're just kind of you know, for instance, it
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: was just gonna be like lost in history, and I'm
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: like this, this is the greatest Star Wars story ever told,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: and few and far between people have experienced this or
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: even know that it exists, And like, there's my plug, puy.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: Therefore you to play those games. It's like if you'll
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: give for something rich in the Star Wars Unit verse,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: it's like, there's your story. Play the Code Tour games,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: especially kodetor two especially.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely second that I'm not gonna go too deep
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: in it because we'll be having some chats on it
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: in a couple of months. We're doing some patron chats
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: on it. But you know, you brought up how in
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the second one, Craya like basically tries to deconstruct the Force,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: essentially deconstruct the lines between good and evil, the Jedi
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: and the Sith. But what makes that different than what
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: happens in the newer movies is that she's the obvious villain,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: like she's doing something wrong, which just shows that the
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: start contrasts in storytelling, whereas so much of I mean,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I know that we could it'd be easy to spend
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the rest of this conversation, just hating on the new movies,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: but you know, so much of those movies are just
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: they're deconstructing in the wrong way, which is the spirit
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of the age I suppose, where all the heroes get
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: ripped apart. You know that Hans, obviously one of the
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: coolest characters in the franchise, is now this like deadbeat
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: divorcee who's just like not really doing anything significant anymore.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: You know, every Luke, I mean, he's obviously a lesser
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: form of what he really should have been. By this
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: point in his story. All the heroes are getting torn down.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: The institution of the Jedi gets torn down as just
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: this artifice of raw power. You know, it's all about deconstruction,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: as if that's somehow spirit of nobility. I don't know,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: But Kotor is Star Wars as it should have been,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, honestly, I can't elevate it above the
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: original trilogy simply because that's that's the original. But I
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: think a case can be made that it is an
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: even better story. But again, I that's hard to say.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Looking back, I say, do you have an experience of
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: those games?
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: I've played the first one I've yet to play the
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: second one played the first one last year. For the
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: first time, I set a deadline for myself, said I'm
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: going to play this game and I make a video
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: about it by this deadline, and I kind of and
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: that was right before I was finishing another very long video,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: so I was a little bit rushed in that, and
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't do as good of a job as I
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: would have liked. And I admit i'd played the game
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: under like a little bit of time crunch, so I
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: probably didn't enjoy it as much I would as I
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: would have liked. I also played it twenty years after
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: it came out, and I went I would have enjoyed
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: this a lot more eighteen years ago if I had
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: played it before. I had the expectations of what modern
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: RPGs look like, just in their combat, in their dialogue,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: not not the quality of the dialogue, but just how
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: it's visually portrayed. Where all the dialogue and Kotor is
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: just a talking head, which is not as interesting as
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: seeing an actual dynamic cutscene such as technology. That's how
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: it goes. I found the philosophy of that game to
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: be wonderful. Again. It is very, very much a story
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: of redemption assuming you make light size choices. And I
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: mean but even even at the end there, right, like
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Revan offers redemption to Malick, it's Malik, right, that's it. Yeah,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: you know, even saying that, like I found it, you
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: can find it too, despite him, you know, persisting in
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: in his errors till till that end. And yeah, and
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: you find that message, you look for that message, you
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: find that message. Ever, what can we do? Move on?
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: You move forward. You can't change what's done. You can
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: only move on. That's that's the dark quote from Red
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: Dead Redemption too. Yeah, so it's I find I find
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: it fascinating and wonderful that that theme runs through so
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: many incredible stories. And yeah, I absolutely the storytelling and
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: you know, just the character dynamics of of Kotor are
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: something that don't really exist in Star Wars anymore. Absolutely,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: I will refrain from bashing the sequels any further. You
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: guys have done a fantastic job. I'm not going to
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: do that. That's not what we're talking about. I will
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: say one thing. It's fine for us as human beings
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: living on a planet Earth to say laser swords, because
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: that is our conceptual knowledge of a lightsaber, right, it's
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: the sword made out of a laser. Luke says, laser
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: sword in the Last Jedi, And that drives me nuts
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: because it's a lightsaber. He knows it as a lightsaber.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: They don't know what swords are. All they know are lightsabers.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I suppose there could be other some sort
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: of swords or whatever. But it's it's a lightsaber, he
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: says it in this you know, just again it's deconstructing, right,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: like he's tearing down the idea of a very lights
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: heaer by calling it a derogatory name drives me insane. Anyhow,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: the others, the other Star Wars game, what je.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: So this is one of those Ryan John citizens that
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: was thrown Absolutely.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: The other Star Wars game that I love to death.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: It's a very simple game. It takes maybe six hours
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: to play through. Is Star Wars Republic Commando. It's another
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: original Xbox game. I think it came out around the
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: same year's Code Tore two thousand and four, two thousand
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: and five. I think it was like co Tor, Star
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Wars Battle, frond Bart's Public Command all came out right
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: around the same time. Uh, what a year for Star
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Wars video games. And it is if you haven't played it,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: which you probably haven't because it's very it really got buried.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: It's a story about a commando squad Clone Commando's during
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: the initially like the Battle of Genosis, and then a
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: couple of later missions, including a Battle on Kshik Battle
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: on Kashik which is seen in episode three of the prequels,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: and basically they were kind of behind enemy lines missions. Uh,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: and it is fantastic. It's you know, it's again. It's
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: a short first person shooter where you're just going through
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: You're fighting you know, droids and gen oceans and you know,
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: raw mercenaries hired by the separatists. But what forms the
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: core of the game is the bond that these four
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Clone commandos share, right, they all have their initial individual
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: distinct personalities, because otherwise it would just be kind of
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: weird if they were in fact just the same person,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: even though they are the same person, and they have
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: this incredible bond of brotherhood. My favorite thing to ever
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: appear on a screen as Band of Brothers, the story
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: about the one hundred and first Airborne at one of
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: their companies right in the in the war in Europe
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: in World War two, because it shows this just how
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: war forges this bond of brotherhood and how like that
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: can be found like nowhere else.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: War is a horrible, horrible, terrible thing, one of the
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: worst blights on humanity, but it forges some of the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: most incredible love. And I think that's I mean that
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: you talk about like the beauty of God's creation, like
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: God's ability to you know, reshape, to make all things
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: new right into sense, right where he takes this horrible
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: thing and he creates something incredible, incredibly beautiful out of it,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: even if, like you know, on Earth, you know, may
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: last a short time because men get killed in war,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: but they had they found this love they couldn't find
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: anywhere else. And that you find that distinctly in Republic
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Commando right where these you know, these these four clones
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: right they are they consider each other brothers. They would
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: happily and immediately die, you know, rather than see one
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: of their comrades fall. And it's a phenomenally phenomenally done story.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: It's something I made a video about it a long
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: time ago, and like I need to revisit that and
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: talk about that more in depth.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: It makes me think of like Halo Reach to some
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: extent too, where you know it is kind of you know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: they're doomed in a sense that it's not quite the
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: same as Halo Reach, where you know they all are doomed,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: but you know, you kind of you kind of know
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: this can't really be a happy ending, but you're there
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: for you know, the bonds that are forged. And yeah,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: it's it's very very good. There's another one, just if
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you could find it on Steam for cheap, which it
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: always is, and uh, yeah, definitely want to check out.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that you just go just shows how
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: rich Star Wars is for good storytelling, because you know,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of times it's categorized as sci fi,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: but it's not. It's fantasy that happens to be in space.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: It's not technologically driven. It's it is a fantasy story.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, the the Jedi are essentially wizards with with
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: swords too. I guess use a derogatory term, but you know,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I mean another well, we're on on this theme. I
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: mean another title the well, I guess I'm going back
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: to the Old Republic, but the the MMO is actually
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: really good. The start the Old Republic MMO and I
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't. I don't play a lot of MMOs. I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: played Wow for a while when it first came out.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I went from from the beta up through Burning Crusade.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: But the The Old Republic MMO really takes that basic model.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a wild skin, Like I guess, a
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: lot of things are more or less. But you know,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: each of the classes its own character story that's basically
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: ko Tore length at least nearly, which you know, I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: hadn't really seen before to have that much replay value,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: that much variability, that much storytelling built into this one game,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and it's, uh yeah, so that's just I don't know.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: I don't have a who lot else to build on that,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: because again, it's like eight different games essentially built into
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: one as far as the storytelling goes. Josh, we are
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: you gonna say something?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I definitely don't know about The Old
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: Republic MMO because I've never played it. But I was
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: just gonna, like, I was gonna second his his recommendation
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: everything he said about Republic Comando and also offer since
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: like you said, we're on the topic now, yeah, now
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: you're saying it. There's like there was a lot of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Star Wars Gems and from like two thousand, two thousand
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: and five and Jedi Outcast and then Jedi Jedi Academy.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: I'm getting them in the right, I think, but they
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: were basically like the stories of Luke Skywalker after Return
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: of the Jedi and him like he's like the new
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: like Jedi Master. He's like the Yoda. Now he's not
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: like super old or anything. He's still kind of looks
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: like you know, Mark Hamill looks like in like the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: mid eighties, but he's like that.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: He's not drinking blue milk on Island yet.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: No, he's not drinking some like aliens utter or something
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: like that. By me means no. And this never happens
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: in that story, I don't think, thankfully, because they didn't,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: you know, bastardize his character in anyway. But it's it's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: really Luke like right after it's like a little bit
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: after Return of the Jedi, and he's he's rebuilding like
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: the Jedi. He's building the Jedi Academy as is in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: the name of in the name of the game title,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: and like it's it's that story, and like your your
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: character is basically one of his, like the apprentices and
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: padawans there, and he's got this Jedi night named Kyle Kataran,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: who's like one of the most underrated Star Wars characters
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: of all time. He's almost like Han Solo if you
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: became a Jedi. He's got that like like charismatic like
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: rogue smoke or sarcastic personality type. But he's great. Those
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: games are awesome too. I couldn't recommend them enough as well.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: There's something I was going to say, but like it
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: slipped my mind, but yeah, okay, glad I found another
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: the Commando fan of the game is has captured my
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: heart forever. My wife's too, but she doesn't play a
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: whole lot of games. Lack of time and you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: just not not her favorite way to relax. But uh,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: she she bought me off off Etsy a couple a
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: couple of different Christmases, like two of the helmets from
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: from the game, so I had those are on like
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: on my bookshelf that stands behind me when I when
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: I filmed videos. Yeah, phenomenal story.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: That's super awesome. I have a friend that like makes
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: uh he like made like Mandalorian helmets for fun. He's
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: made like a helmet from Fallout and stuff like that too,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: but super cool stuff. I will when people do.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: That cool and I feel like we could probably go
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: around all night, just different games laid. But I mean,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I'll throw one more at least from my side. And
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: really it's I mean, originally it's built off the same
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: model of Kotor, and that, of course is dragon Age,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: which I've played. I played a lot of. I mean
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I played one and two and sometimes three on a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: fairly regular rotation for a while. Just another rich fantasy series,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: you know, because I was there in the beginning that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: the clunky elements of dragon Age origins, you know, never
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: really bothered me, just as with Kotor, because I definitely
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: recognize that Sam says that getting into those games can
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: be difficult, jumping in now without having that, you know,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: without being there three thousand years ago, as Alrod would
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: say that. By the way, you know, there is supposedly
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: a Kotor rebake in the works. There there's been one
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: off and on studio problems, but for everything I can tell,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: it's still happening at some point. But yeah, but dragon Age,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of course, is another one of those franchises that has
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: just tanked to postmodern ideology. Everything that I've seen from
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the latest installation that's come out had just ruined it
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: for me. It's it's it's so easy, I think for
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: creators for studios to move away from how do I
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: tell a story to how do I tell the story
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: that people not even just that they want to hear?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: How do I tell the story that people should hear? Right?
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: And that's when you get into propaganda. That's that same
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: was saying, it's the other side of the I'm going
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: to tell a Christian story, but I'm gonna tell some
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: postmodern Marxist deconstruction of story, and so it's just it's
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: just kind of a shame where things go with that.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: I remember what I was about to say. I've not
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: played I've never touched the Old Republic. I've not played
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: a second of it, simply due to lack of time.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: And also I've never played an MMO, so I just
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: haven't really depped my toes in. But the cinematic trailers
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: for that game are incredible. I will go and rewatch
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: them from time to time on YouTube. They are some
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: of the best storytelling like in the Star Wars universe.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: And I'm not being hyperbolic.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean, those games are incredible for storytelling
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: as far as the end game as well as the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: cut scenes. I mean, it's I mean I have not
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: played many Momos, like I said, I've played Wow. I've
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: played a good bit of The Old Republic. I did
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: my toes a little bit in the Elder Scrolls online,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: but that just didn't last more than a few hours
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: before I just decided that wasn't for me. But Star
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Wars the Old Republic, it's a fantastic game. And even
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: if you're not into the MMO elements of it, which
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I tended to just play by myself. I'm
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: an independent gamer for the most part. You know, you
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: can go through those play essentially like single player games
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: with just very rich storytelling. Well, I mean, is there
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: anything else? And I said, we could go on all night.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: We won't do. That's anything on Stammer or Josh that
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: you wanted to bring up.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: We've talked a lot about like kind of story during games,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: but I think one of the games one of the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: aspects that makes games so good is that you can
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: tell your own story, right, Like just your progress through
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: the game is is itself often a story. So some
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: of my two of my favorite games that are both
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: of my top ten hours on Steam are the Xcom games,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: not the original ones from like the early nineties, but
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: the reboot from twenty twelve and then the Xcom two
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: from twenty sixteen. And so basically it's an alien invasion.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Xcom is the you know, multinational agency that comes together
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: and online all other multi national agencies ever created is
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: actually effective. So right, so you're fighting back against the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: aliens and you know, progressing your technology tree, you know,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: doing various research, building out your base, et cetera, all
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: those you know, good kind of RPG like elements. But
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: you are controlling a you know, kind of a top
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: down almost like you know, almost like a tabletup game,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: squad of soldiers that you you know, on take turns,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: you moving around the maps, the tactical turn based game.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: You move around the map, you shoot the anlyats, you
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: throw the grenades. You know, you win the mission and
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: the story. This game would not be half as good
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: if it didn't let you name your characters, but it does.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: And so you can name them Ao and are ericorn
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Aylmer and so forth, or you can give them names
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: from Star Wars, or pick your favorite fantasy you know
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: series or name them after your friends and family whatever,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: all right, but then you have because you have characters, right,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: because you have people, this is now a story, right,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: These characters now have arcs almost right where they get wounded,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: you know, they're severely you know, wanted to buy a
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: plasma bolt from from an alien. But they come back
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: and you know they rise, you know, the top rank.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: They have the most kills of the whole mission, right
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: or you know, someone who's your star throughout the whole
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: whole mission. You know, it gets the it gets the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: floor blown out from out of them, the falls to
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: their death. Right. So it's kind of it lets you
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: kind of create this this story in your mind as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: you go through this games, you know, and and it's
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: got lots of other elements which you could get value of. Again,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: it's it's planning, thinking ahead, perseverance. You make the game,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: the games more difficult, you know, actually tactical thinking, not
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: just rushing through. But I love the element of being
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: able to create your own story. And this is where games,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: you know, RPGs and the like are, you know, really
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: shines that you know, the choices you make matter. And
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: I think that's one of the one of the things
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: that games to tell people best because they're interactive. It
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: forces you to make choices, and those choices mattering is
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: you know something that is obviously applicable to our for
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: day life.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Well, so you mentioned that's one of your you know,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: highest our account on Steam. What do you think is
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: your your your number one Steam game most I know.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: I looked this up recently and I know it's it's
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: more than double anything else. The game is called Rocket League,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: and this is again very very opposite end of the
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: spectrum everything we've been talking about. Rocket League is soccer
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: with rocket powered cars. It's it is exactly what it
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: sounds like. I have. I think it's something like six
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: hundred hours on Steam, and I know that that number
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: is maybe a little more half of my actual total
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: number of hours in the game to played on Xbox,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: and I played on like Epic Games for a while.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: For whatever reason, that's the game I get back into
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: like twenty fifteen when it came out. I played a lot.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I played it a lot with my friends, and it
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: was a game I got very good at, which again
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: there's it's the most sport like video game that you
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: could possibly ever make because it's most sport video games
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: Matt and NHL whatever are just like press a button
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: to throw the pop, throw a pass, shoot the puck,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: shoot the ball, whatever, and like there's very little actual
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: refined skill in it, whereas Rocket League is you have
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: minute control over your car and it's all physics based,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: so how you hit the ball at what point, at
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: what angle, what speed matters, and you know where the
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: ball actually goes right, So it is it's just entirely skilled.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: There's basically no luck whatsoever. And having played a lot
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: of sports when I was younger, that kind of filled
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: that need for a little bit, whereas like I'm not
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: wasn't competing in sports anymore, so it gave me something
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: to really practice and get good at. So yeah, very
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: different for most of the stuff we've been talking about,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I love about video games
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: is where it can it can, you know, bring out
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: good in you, It can teach you all sorts of things.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: It can you know, be of value, even if it's
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: whether it's practicing a very specific skill in Rocket League
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: or exploring fill deep and philosophical themes in Kotor.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that that emphasis on skill. That's something that you know,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: sometimes I hear Elon Must talk about, which I mean,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: he's not my number one philosopher, but you know he
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: talks about how that kind of hyper focus can help
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: you to one thing, kind of reset your mind and
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: separating out other things in life. You know, take that
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a break. But also it just
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: trains your mind to hyper focus, and that itself is
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: a good exercise from time to time. Uh, Josh, tell us,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: what's what's your most played game? Do you think.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: Most played game of all time or on Steam.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Wherever you want to go with that.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know all time all time.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I might spend too much time
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: thinking about that, so on my for now because I
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: haven't checked this and I've been on Steam in a while,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: to be honest, but I know for sure it's actually
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: is like the first Dark Souls game, because I think
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: I've beaten it like a lot of in our twelve times.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: I used to like like quasi speed run it. I
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: mean like I could like beat it in like maybe
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: like two or three hours. But that doesn't make me
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: a speed runner because you know, there's like guys that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: play that game like naked with like nothing but like
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: a caveman club and like they like play it with
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: like the guitar hero controller and still beat it in
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: twenty minutes somehow, Like I'm not I wasn't never that ridiculous,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: but I think that that is like my most played game,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: and honestly, like it really was. Yes, it was fun,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: but I wanted to like keep exploring that world. It's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: Dark Soul is one of the world's called Wardrone, and
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: I wanted to keep exploring Wardrone over and over and
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again. And that's what kept
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: drawing me back to play. It was like a comfort
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: food for a while. It was like whenever I was
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: like needed to, like I don't want to say relax
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: too much, because you can only relax so much playing
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: Dark Souls, but there was like a level or like
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: there's something that just feels like it's like like going
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: home after like a difficult journey in a way to
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: like only go home and go on a virtually difficult journey.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: But there was something really comforting about just exploring that world.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: Even though the world is sometimes terrifying, the world is
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: sometimes challenges you to wit send in a way but yeah,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: I just something about that game that's always kept bringing
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: me back to it, so that that's I have, like
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: I think close to one hundred hours on that on Steam,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: so quite a lot.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, as with Sam, despite most of our conversation,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: my number one game is not story driven. It's actually
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Crusader Kings two by a long run, which that that
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: game if you haven't played it as a kind of
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: a deep learning curve, but once you get it down,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: it's just it's infinite replay value. I'm not going to
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: tell you how many hours I have on it. It's
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: kind of an ups number. And then after that, then
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: we get to the story driven games and we go
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: to Fallout, Skyrim and whatnot. Although five is up there
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: Yep, so five is easily in my top ten, but
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: again there's a there's a story within that game, right,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Like my wife and I would both play five. We'd
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: be playing you know, we're in college, but separate colleges.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: You know, we'd divisive five. You know, our individual games.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: And we get on Skype back when Skype still existed,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: you know, a couple of times a week, and we
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: talk about our SIV games. We're talking about the story.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: What wonders you building? You know, we go into war
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: with anybody? Has anybody you know been been harassing you
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: right as England and Constant been attempting to trade with you,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: and you have to tell us what the go pound
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: sand like? There's I don't know. I love the Yeah,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: the ability to just tell a story with you know,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: the ability of games to tell stories even when they're
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: not telling a story.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's part of the value of subcreation when
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: when they give you that room to tell your own story,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to participate, you know, that's why you know. Tolkien says
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: that one benefit of literature over movies is that you
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: have to visualize things in your own mind, and so
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: just that extent, every reader has a somewhat of a
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: different story based off what their experience, other things they've read,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the various things that go into forming your mental images
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: of what's playing out. That you participate in the act
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: of subcreation as a reader versus a movie where you're
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: just watching something play out. I think a similar case
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: could be made for video games, at least for a
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: large number of video games, when you play a role
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: in creating what the story is. I mean, yes, you're
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: operating within certain parameters, but you are also operating in
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: certain parameters. When you read a book, you're dealing with
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: the texas given to you, And so I think that
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: that case very easily could be made.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean really applies more to less to story
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: driven games than it is to a lot of others,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: because most of games, like the God of War games
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: that I'm thinking of specifically, they are largely movies right
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: where there's a lot of gameplay, but then there's a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: cutscene right in the kind of this long cut scene,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: something like kotor Is, which is which is still very
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: storage ofn is less like that. There is much more
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: subcreation available to than games which are like, Okay, they're
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: telling you this story and you're playing through it. So
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: it kind of depends on the game. There's a lot
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: of a lot of variation there. But yeah, I think absolutely.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't I assume that's from one of Tolkien's letters,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: because most everything that Tolkien says that I haven't already
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: read from his letters or I don't remember anyway, I've
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: read some of them. But yeah, I hadn't heard that before,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: So that's fascinating.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he really gets into that in his essay
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: on fairy stories.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: That's fair stories, Okay, yeah, something I've read hearts of it.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: I don't think I ever sat down read the whole thing.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely worthwhile. I mean, he has a lot
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: of literary references that most people, myself included, like, I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: don't follow all of his references that he makes, not yet,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: but as far as the basic idea he's laying out there,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: it's really foundational to the way that I engage with
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: stories in any format. So it definitely would recommend that
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: dataybody listening. Yeah, So I feel like we covered good
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: ground that the basics of what I wanted to discuss.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, is there is there anything that Josh or
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: Sam you feel like should be brought into this that
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: hasn't already? It's a gay if not, But I don't
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: want to cut off any thoughts.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: M I don't think so.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: I was kind of curious and maybe we've already touched
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: on this enough, so let me know. But like the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: idea of like games that and like, I guess we
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: did kind of talk about this with dark Souls, but
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: games that like don't have like an explicit uh an
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: explicit like narrative but almost like tells its meaning through
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: like simple and some and aesthetics, if that makes sense.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: So I think like something like something like Legends of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: Selad I might like fit into that category more where
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: I guess like there is like an explicit story, but
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: sometimes there's there's more beyond the story, or sometimes it's
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: just the story is really basic, but there's more within
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: the world. And one game I wanted to bring up
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: in that regard in case anybody else's point is I
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: was curious, pointed Shadow of the Colossus, and if not,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: I'll like look that game up later. First of all,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: but that's a game where there's this it's kind of
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: just symbol like you're this you're this boy, and you
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: you arrive at like this temple on a horse and
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: basically had to beat these I think it's like I
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: don't even remember how many coloss side there are.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: I think there's six. It's it's funny you mentioned it
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: because I just picked that game like I had it
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: forever and I started playing it. I needed to like
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: lie down on the couch because I'm dealing with like
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: an injury, but I was lying on the couch with like, hey, kids,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: like we're gonna we're gonna play this for a little bit.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: We don't do that very much, but I was like so,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: and they got all sorts of questions, so I literally
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: just like beat like the first colossus just the other day.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: But yeah, continue, oh no, for sure, that's that's super
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 3: cool and coincidental to hear. But yeah, so there's like
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: basically these sixteen coloss side and it's like your character
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: is like this, it's kind of like your typical like
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: you know, twelve year old boy with a sword in
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: a fantasy setting and he's got he's got this horse,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: which is sometimes incorporated into the combat, sometimes more, sometimes less,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: but like you just you're just dropped off on this
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: huge plane and you find the next colossus by like
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: he holds his sword up to like the sun and
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: like it points a beam of light towards just the
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: general direction you have to go.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: And that's that's it.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: Like that's the entire game is just hunting down a
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: six colossi. They all represent different different like mythical beasts,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: and therefore you have different ways to basically attack them
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: like that. They're all like kind of they're kind of
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: like a giant Humanoid Boss Puzzle in a sense. But
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: it's it's just a really fascinating game and it's so
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: unbelievably unique, but it kind of like ties in with
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: that concept I'm trying to get at here. It's like,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: there's not like some explicitly deep store. It's not like
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: it's not Fallout New Vegas where you can spend like
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: dozens of hours just walking around, you know, the desert
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: of Las Vegas, talking to different people. Right, It's not
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: you don't really talk to anybody the entire game, but
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: somehow there's a story being told there through like the
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: substance of the world versus you know, the mouths of
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: the characters in this sense. And I feel like that's
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: like a there's like a category of gaming that that
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: that is that is that too. That's sometimes not talked about,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: but it can be even overlooked because sometimes it can
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: be seen as or that game was dumb or something
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: because it didn't have like a story, like what's the
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: point it's like, but there was there was something there,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: and I think sometimes people just it's over their head.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: They miss it.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, games have the advantage of that. Most movies, you know,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: TV shows were not of environmental storytelling, right, so they
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: you know, developers, good ones anyway, will often you know,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: place objects in the world that tell a story that
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: if you will care enough, you will find and notice them.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: The example that comes to mind the thing of of
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: when it comes to environmental storytelling is a game called
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: Prey p R E Y that came out twenty sixteen,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, I think, and it very much has a story.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: It has a narrative set into spaceship or space station,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: you know, the not too distant future that you know
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: it gets infected by an alien parasite essentially, but it
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: has a lot of environmental storytelling, right, so, whether it's
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: notes that are left around or even just like I
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: think I've seen I remember seeing this in a video
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: like someone's like baseball, glove and pizza that are sitting
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: out and kind of like you know stowed away spot
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: where you can learn about you know, other characters. Mostly
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: all that anyway at this point just by you know,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: walking around and observing the world, and that's you know
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: that you could apply the same sort of thing to
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: you know, Breath of the Wild, where you you're going
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: to learn about the history of the world. Just by observing,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: by walking around exploring, whether it's you know, just looking
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: at every nook and Gride can possibly find, or talking
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: to every NPC and exists, you know, exhausting every possible
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: dialogue tree and yeah that you know that is really cool.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: Where it's just the games really take in. And this
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: supplies to think, to games more than most media, but
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: to all media, because intentionality matters. Like we said at
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: the beginning, but you really do get in what you
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: put out, or get you really get out what you
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: put in, and to an extreme extent where yeah, you
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: can last through you know, the main quest of Skyrim,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: which everyone told me not to do when I tweeted
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: that it was my first time playing and asking for
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: advice like don't play them in a question, Okay, I
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: got it. Yeah, So it's just explore, right, experience. That's
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: something that games can do that you know, other media
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: can't really.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is for so long what has kept
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: me with the beathesta titles, with elder scrolls, with the
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: fallout that you.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: It.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's kind of a you know, running
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: joke that the main storyline is the side story, like
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's the last thing you want to do after
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: you you do everything else, because the purpose of the
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: games is not really the story per se. And I
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: think that the stories have some value, especially when you
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: go back to morrowind and Oblivion. I mean, Skyrim's has
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: a good central story too, but it's it's very simple.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: But the real purpose of the game, the value of
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: the game is in the exploration, the engagement, in the
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: subcreation of determining like what kind of role are you
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: going to play in this world? And I think that's
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: what gives something like Skyrims so much replay value, and
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: that yeah, even though you're you're doing the same stuff
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: eventually if you've played enough times, but you do it
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: with your own sort of headcanon on who you are
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: and what you're doing in the in this world, how
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: you're engaging. And you know, Josha talking about that like
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: dynamic storyteller of just the nonverbal cues and whatnot, the symbolism,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: the aesthetics, And I feel like even in these these
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: Bethesta titles, you get a lot of that when you're
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: just wandering around and you discover like the way like
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: you'll come across like a corpse. That's that's in a
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: certain way with other environmental cues as to what happened here,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: you know, follow Out I think does this very well
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: with the way that you know, some of some of
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: the settings laid out, and it's just it becomes this immersive,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: mysterious enchanting aesthetic or I guess for Fallout kind of
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: disenchanting is more of the point. Yeah, and so I
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: think it's it's a good point. Well, we've been run
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: for like an hour and a half. We could, as said,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: easily go all night just talking about different things, but
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: I think we'll go ahead and wrap it there for now,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: and maybe if we want to at some point in
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: the future, we could hit up some more things. But
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you Sam and Josh coming on, and I'm
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: sure that we will talk again about something or another.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: No, thank you so much for having me on, Andrew.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: We appreciate it. This is this is a great conversation.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed this.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: All right. Thank you for listening. And please, if you're
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: not already, make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: and if you're listening on the Freebee feed, then make
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  Speaker 1: sure that you're also subscribed to the main Mythic Mind podcast.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: As well as Mythic Mind movies and shows, where we
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: take a similar kind of approach, but with a focus
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: on movies and shows. Right now we're doing a Star
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: Wars series, we just got to the prequels, and then
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: over on the main Mythic Mind podcast we're doing a
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: few different things. Sometimes we have our book club on
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Augustin's Confessions. I'm also providing some material from my fiction
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: philosophy of CS Lewis course. Right now we are coming
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: up on the screw Tape Letters, and so the next
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: thing to come out from Mythic Mind will be over
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: on the main Mythic Mind podcast. Not exactly sure what's
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: going to be. It might be Screwtape Letters, might be
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: something else, but something will be coming out on Monday
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: over on Mythic Mind. Now. If you would like to
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  Speaker 1: go right, you can join those conversations in our in
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: our discord server. And also I've just recently announced a
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: new course coming up, and so I'm going to go
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: ahead and provide that course announcement right here, and that
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: is how we will sign off. And so if you
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: are on the Freebee feed, then you will hear from
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: me next time over on Mythic Mind on Monday till
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: then God's Freaking The Psychology of Soaring care quy guards
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: a ten week course led up by doctor Andrew Snyder,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: coming in the spring of twenty twenty six. What if
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: anxiety is not just a disease to be cured or
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: to be wished away, but it's actually a revelation of
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: one of our most fundamental freedoms, a freedom that is
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: awakened by possibility. And I don't just mean the possibility
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: of doing one thing or another, not just the possibility
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: of what might happen to you or around you in
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: this world of changing fortunes, but rather the possibility that's
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: presented by our own will, of our ability to determine
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: what it is that we are and where we're going
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: to base our identity. Who are we? What is our essence?
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: Where will we seek for stability in this changing world?
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: What even are we in a world that is constantly
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: given over to change into uncertainty. These are questions that
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: we answer at every single moment, although we often fail
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: to recognize that there's even a choice to be made,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: let alone that we are the ones who are doing
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: the choosing. Most people today answer these questions by claiming
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: that we are whatever we want to be. There's no
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: one to tell us no or where to go. Truth, goodness,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: and beauty, and even what it means to be human
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: is entirely upprograbs because, as the secular existentialist Jean Paul
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Sart says, existence precedes essence, which means that we are
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: thrown into this world without purpose or design. We have
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: no boundaries, and we are all just making it up
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: as we go along. Popular academia and even well meaning
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: theological critics often trace this thought back to Soaring Caukedguard,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century Danish philosopher and so called father of existentialism. However,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: as I argued in my doctoral dissertation, an honest reading
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: of Careguard will actually lead to very different conclusions. In
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: this ten week study, we will discuss three of Careguard's
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: critical and often very difficult psychological texts that form the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: foundation for my dissertation, The Concept of anxiety, The Sickness
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: unto Death, and Fear and Trembling. The Concept of anxiety
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: provides a penetrating investigation into the experience and consequences of
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: anxiety as the gateway to losing or or finding oneself.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: The Sickness unto Death surveys the various forms that the
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: loss of one's self can take, such as reality denying,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: hyper imaginations which run in the mainstream of today's thought,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: and inability to consider the possibility of change or identification
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: with transient things, and several other forms of despair, many
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: of which often go undetected, at least for a time
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: now for a more positive outcome. Fear and Trembling focuses
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: on Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac to demonstrate the leap of
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: faith that results in one's true self. Ask your Guard
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: rights in one of his journals, With God's help, I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: shall become myself. Whether you are interested in the history
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: of ideas and you want to better understand Careguard's role
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: as a Christian who became dubbed as the Father of existentialism,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: or you have more existential concerns, such as finding a
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: better way to understand your anxiety as a potential pathway
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: to living out your human purpose. Or you want to
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: root out underlying despair that seems to ruminate on the
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: surface even in the good times when you stop to
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: pay attention, or you want to discover what it means
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: to live as a knight of faith, then join me
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: in studying the psychology of Soaring Kirkeygarten. You can enroll
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: in the individual course from the shop at patreon dot
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  Speaker 1: com slash Mythic Mind, or become a Tier three annual
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: patron and get access to all courses that begin within
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: that yearly term. A definitive date will be provided as
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: the course gets closer, but you can look forward to
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: this study in the spring of twenty twenty six. To
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: get the best value, be sure to head over to
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind right now and become
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: a Tier three annual patroon. I hope to see you there.