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7 - Legend of Zelda: Mythopoeia, Tolkien, and the Triforce · 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 Dr.
0:09
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. Hey there,
0:19
Speaker 1: and welcome back as we get ready for the second
0:21
Speaker 1: part of our two-part miniseries on The Legend of Zelda.
0:26
Speaker 1: Last time we had a general conversation with Josh, with David,
0:30
Speaker 1: and of course with me on Zelda, the philosophy involved,
0:36
Speaker 1: the artistic value, the mythology, and just kind of generally
0:41
Speaker 1: why we think that this is a franchise that has
0:44
Speaker 1: had such staying power, why it has had such an
0:48
Speaker 1: impact on the culture more broadly than video games tend to.
0:53
Speaker 1: that there's definitely some weight there, that it resonates with
0:56
Speaker 1: human experience and human longing for a reason. And today
0:59
Speaker 1: we'll be getting more into that with some different angles
1:03
Speaker 1: with a special guest. Today we're going to be joined
1:05
Speaker 1: by Dr. Anthony Cirilla. Dr. Anthony Cirilla is Associate Professor
1:09
Speaker 1: of English at College of the Ozarks. He's a lecturer
1:12
Speaker 1: at the Davenant Institute, an Anglican priest in the United
1:14
Speaker 1: Episcopal Church in North America, and rector at his local parish.
1:18
Speaker 1: And he's also Associate Editor of Carmina Philosophiae, the Journal
1:21
Speaker 1: of the International Boethius Society. He also co-edited a book
1:26
Speaker 1: called Mythopoeic Narrative in the Legend of Zelda series in 2020,
1:30
Speaker 1: to which he contributed an essay on Tolkien's mythopoeia in
1:32
Speaker 1: The Hero's Journey with reference to the virtues of the
1:35
Speaker 1: Triforce in Ocarina of Time. This year, he has an
1:38
Speaker 1: upcoming essay anthology that he's editing on theology in Avatar
1:42
Speaker 1: The Last Airbender. And he's currently writing a book on
1:46
Speaker 1: Boethius and the Constellation of a Quiet Life coming up
1:49
Speaker 1: in 2026. So definitely an interesting fellow. He's interested in
1:53
Speaker 1: a lot of the same kinds of things that we
1:54
Speaker 1: tend to talk about on the show. A lot of
1:56
Speaker 1: personal interests of mine, in addition to the Zelda video
1:59
Speaker 1: game storytelling, artistry connection. Also, we definitely have Boethius in common.
2:05
Speaker 1: And I love Boethius. I read the Constellation of Philosophy
2:09
Speaker 1: on a fairly annual basis. I love teaching the Constellation.
2:13
Speaker 1: And so I'll have to have Anthony on the main
2:16
Speaker 1: show sometime to just talk Boethius. But for now, we
2:18
Speaker 1: are here to talk about Zelda and Mythopia. And then also,
2:21
Speaker 1: of course, we have Josh Traylor. And, you know, as
2:24
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the last episode, my experience with Zelda,
2:27
Speaker 1: it's not as great as it is with Josh's. And
2:29
Speaker 1: so I figured it'd be good for him to take
2:30
Speaker 1: the lead on asking the questions and facilitating the conversation.
2:33
Speaker 1: So Josh will be leading us again. And, you know,
2:36
Speaker 1: I realized that I haven't formally introduced Josh on this podcast,
2:39
Speaker 1: so I should probably do that. So Joshua Traylor is
2:41
Speaker 1: an incoming upper school literature teacher at Ivywood Classical Academy.
2:45
Speaker 1: He is a graduate student in the Great Books program
2:48
Speaker 1: at Memorial College, and he's currently teaching a course for
2:51
Speaker 1: us for Mythic Mind on Paradise Lost. And by the way,
2:54
Speaker 1: even though that course is well into it now, it's
2:56
Speaker 1: not too late to enroll. It's really inexpensive. It's 50
2:59
Speaker 1: bucks or $ 25 if you are a patron of Mythic Mind.
3:03
Speaker 1: And even though the course is already well into it,
3:05
Speaker 1: maybe the course is already finished by the time that
3:07
Speaker 1: you are listening to this. Once you enroll, you get
3:10
Speaker 1: all the materials indefinitely. And so there's not really a
3:13
Speaker 1: timetable on that in that you get all these great resources.
3:16
Speaker 1: So Josh can really serve as a good guide for
3:18
Speaker 1: him in going through Paradise Lost. Now, he is also
3:21
Speaker 1: Josh is also currently working on a chapter on the
3:24
Speaker 1: concept of the Aristotelian tragic hero to be featured in
3:28
Speaker 1: the fourth pop culture and philosophy volume, Dark Souls and Philosophy.
3:33
Speaker 1: So we've got some interesting combinations of overlapping interests represented
3:37
Speaker 1: between the three of us. I think that this led
3:39
Speaker 1: to a very productive, very worthwhile conversation on the mythopoeic
3:43
Speaker 1: nature of the Legend of Zelda. So now let's go
3:45
Speaker 1: ahead and get to it. Welcome, Josh and Dr. Sorella,
3:52
Speaker 1: to talk about Zelda and its mythopoeic value. I mentioned
3:58
Speaker 1: in the last episode that we did with Josh and
4:00
Speaker 1: with David that My experience with Zelda really ends with
4:04
Speaker 1: the N64. So I've been out of the loop since
4:07
Speaker 1: Ocarina and Majora's Mask, but those games, especially Ocarina, are really,
4:11
Speaker 1: they're formative experiences for our generation. It still stands out
4:16
Speaker 1: to me. My cat comes when I whistle Epona's song.
4:18
Speaker 1: Like these are the things that stand out to you. And,
4:23
Speaker 1: you know, I'm convinced that even though I haven't really
4:26
Speaker 1: been in the loop for a while, something like Zelda,
4:29
Speaker 1: this kind of franchise that has such a hold on
4:30
Speaker 1: the culture to the point where even people who aren't
4:33
Speaker 1: gamers know what Zelda is, at least recognize it. And
4:37
Speaker 1: to me, that alone means there's something significant there that
4:39
Speaker 1: speaks to human reality. Otherwise, it wouldn't have that grip
4:43
Speaker 1: that it does. And so I look forward to digging
4:45
Speaker 1: into that conversation. But because I just don't have the
4:50
Speaker 1: expertise on the subject, I'm going to let Josh really
4:53
Speaker 1: take the reins of this interview here. I know he
4:56
Speaker 1: has some questions to ask, and I'll just jump in
4:58
Speaker 1: wherever I'm able. So, Josh, you want to take it
5:01
Speaker 1: away with whatever you have for him?
5:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for joining us, Anthony. So, first off,
5:09
Speaker 2: I just want to do, I got to throw a
5:11
Speaker 2: plug out here, but this book, this mythopoeic narrative in
5:15
Speaker 2: The Legends of Zelda, this is what we were referencing
5:17
Speaker 2: in the last podcast. Anthony is one of the editors
5:22
Speaker 2: in this, right? One of two?
5:24
Speaker 3: Yes, Vincent Rohn is the other.
5:26
Speaker 2: Yep, so you can buy it on Amazon, you can
5:29
Speaker 2: probably buy it elsewhere, I would assume, but I've read
5:31
Speaker 2: through some of the essays and your introduction, which I
5:35
Speaker 2: thought was fantastic. I really like a lot of the
5:37
Speaker 2: points that you made there. There's one quote I'm taking here,
5:40
Speaker 2: and it says, on page seven, you say that if
5:44
Speaker 2: we pit intellectualism against video games, video games will win.
5:49
Speaker 2: And in a broader context, my understanding is that you're
5:53
Speaker 2: basically making this claim that we should, as academics in
5:59
Speaker 2: the humanities, be finding a way to connect with sort
6:02
Speaker 2: of like the video game pop culture and kind of
6:04
Speaker 2: bridge the gap between the academy and lovers of video games.
6:09
Speaker 2: And I think... you have a lot of, you know,
6:12
Speaker 2: video essayists on YouTube and some of them are really good.
6:15
Speaker 2: Like even if they don't have any sort of academic pedigree,
6:18
Speaker 2: it's just a hobby. Some of them are very good.
6:21
Speaker 2: But even being able to bridge the gap between maybe
6:24
Speaker 2: them and academics who have just some of the education
6:28
Speaker 2: in the chops to talk about philosophical and literary concepts
6:32
Speaker 2: and kind of probe deeper into those. I think there's just,
6:35
Speaker 2: I think there really is a market for that out there.
6:38
Speaker 2: And I think not just a market, but just a,
6:41
Speaker 2: a good to our society in general. And I, I'll
6:44
Speaker 2: speak for myself and I think Andrew will nod his
6:46
Speaker 2: head if he agrees, but like, I think at Mythic
6:48
Speaker 2: Mind we're for sure very much about that very kind
6:51
Speaker 2: of thing. So, um, I wanted to bring that up
6:55
Speaker 2: and also just compliment that that's a, it's a lovely introduction.
6:57
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed that.
6:59
Speaker 3: Thank you. And also thank you so much, Josh, for
7:02
Speaker 3: facilitating this and Andrew for having me on. This is, uh,
7:06
Speaker 3: Great fun. I am always up for talking about Zelda,
7:09
Speaker 3: so I'm really excited to dig into this.
7:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So, our podcast episode was two days ago. Andrew, David,
7:18
Speaker 2: and I talked about various things about Zelda, and we
7:22
Speaker 2: talked about our experience with the game. We usually like
7:24
Speaker 2: to kind of talk about experiences with the subject matter, so...
7:30
Speaker 2: Would you please just tell us a little bit about
7:32
Speaker 2: your personal experience with the Zelda game over the course
7:35
Speaker 2: of your life, or however long you've been playing that?
7:38
Speaker 3: So, Andrew led, I think, with the creme de la creme.
7:42
Speaker 3: I mean, bowing out at Ocarina of Time in Majora's
7:45
Speaker 3: Mask is nothing to be ashamed of. That was also
7:49
Speaker 3: essentially my entry point into Zelda. When I was reading, well,
7:55
Speaker 3: when I was playing Zelda, I had already been reading Tolkien.
8:00
Speaker 3: I think I was around 11 when Ocarina of Time
8:02
Speaker 3: came out. It was around that time that I was
8:05
Speaker 3: discovering Tolkien, and then shortly after Zelda. And so my
8:08
Speaker 3: experience of playing Zelda was essentially, oh, this is sort
8:12
Speaker 3: of a digital way, a virtual way to experience what
8:16
Speaker 3: Tolkien is all about. So the story is pretty much,
8:21
Speaker 3: I was at this Super Bowl party with my family,
8:24
Speaker 3: and I was pretty bored. I wasn't really interested in
8:26
Speaker 3: the game. I enjoyed it. football more now, but at
8:29
Speaker 3: the time I didn't really. And my step-uncle actually noticed
8:35
Speaker 3: and he said, well, you know, I've got these games.
8:38
Speaker 3: And he shared the first Zelda and A Link to
8:41
Speaker 3: the Past. He didn't share Zelda 2 with me. And
8:45
Speaker 3: then he shared Ocarina of Time. And Ocarina of Time
8:48
Speaker 3: just immediately grabbed me as this incredible adventurer. And I think,
8:54
Speaker 3: like The Hobbit, it has this model of giving you
8:58
Speaker 3: a place of home. You have the shire, you have
9:01
Speaker 3: this sense of belonging in this fantasy realm, and then
9:05
Speaker 3: it pushes you out of that, the kind of there
9:08
Speaker 3: and back again feeling of it. So pretty much right away,
9:13
Speaker 3: Zelda seemed to me like it was almost allowing me
9:17
Speaker 3: to play through the experience of the kind of fantasy
9:21
Speaker 3: that I love so much in Tolkien.
9:23
Speaker 2: Sorry, cut out for a second. No, thank you so
9:28
Speaker 2: much for the answers, though. I appreciate that. Yeah, I
9:31
Speaker 2: think it seems like Ocarina of Time is rightfully so
9:33
Speaker 2: a fan favorite. I was three when that game came out,
9:39
Speaker 2: but nevertheless, it somehow gripped me, if not when I
9:43
Speaker 2: was maybe five or six rather than three. I think
9:46
Speaker 2: there's a lot of reasons for that.
9:49
Speaker 3: Well, look at how much it's been re-released. I mean,
9:51
Speaker 3: it has staying power. You can get it on virtually
9:54
Speaker 3: every console that Nintendo has, um and that tells you
9:58
Speaker 3: something that nintendo thinks you know we we better keep
10:01
Speaker 3: this this one alive you know sure yeah.
10:04
Speaker 2: I think it's like we could like sit here and
10:06
Speaker 2: name off like some of the great books of western
10:09
Speaker 2: literature right it's like the odyssey the aeneid beowulf lord
10:14
Speaker 2: of the rings hamlet just the list goes on and
10:17
Speaker 2: on and on i think if we were to do
10:18
Speaker 2: that with like video like literary works in video games. Um,
10:22
Speaker 2: I would hope Ocarina of Time would be considered to
10:24
Speaker 2: be critically acclaimed.
10:26
Speaker 3: Um, yeah, I would hope so.
10:28
Speaker 1: See, I was kind of hoping that you're going to
10:30
Speaker 1: go right from great books and then just mix an Ocarina,
10:32
Speaker 1: you know, right in there.
10:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure.
10:36
Speaker 3: We have the more Adler who had the great books
10:39
Speaker 3: class and sort of, we could add, you know, the Canon, uh,
10:43
Speaker 3: had some video games in there. Yeah.
10:45
Speaker 2: Lots of you explore. That's for sure. Um, So another
10:50
Speaker 2: thing we're definitely doing here is going back to the
10:54
Speaker 2: title of your book, going back to Tolkien. We definitely
10:58
Speaker 2: go back to Tolkien a lot at Mythic Mind. We
11:00
Speaker 2: go back to C.S. Lewis a lot. Probably those two
11:03
Speaker 2: more than anybody else, I would say. And so this term, Mythopoeia,
11:10
Speaker 2: is on the mind here. It's in your title. We've
11:14
Speaker 2: talked about it in other places. So for our listeners who...
11:19
Speaker 2: aren't experienced with such a concept or a topic or
11:23
Speaker 2: don't know what that word means, would you just explain
11:28
Speaker 2: what that means? Or if somebody asked you, what does
11:30
Speaker 2: that mean? And they had never heard it before, how
11:32
Speaker 2: would you answer that?
11:35
Speaker 3: It's difficult to capture in few words because it's a
11:40
Speaker 3: rich concept. I mean, etymologically, of course, you all know
11:45
Speaker 3: it means myth-making. In a creative writing class, we might
11:50
Speaker 3: translate it, roughly speaking, as world building. But I think
11:54
Speaker 3: it's richer than that. I think mythopoeia is about how
11:59
Speaker 3: our human capacity to make myths is actually part of
12:06
Speaker 3: how we explain the world. You know, Tolkien's poem, Mythopoeia,
12:10
Speaker 3: which I don't have my copy of Tree and Leaf
12:13
Speaker 3: with me. You know, of course, you know, he wrote
12:17
Speaker 3: to C.S. Lewis as really an argument of epistemology that
12:21
Speaker 3: when we are deeply telling stories about elves, and I
12:26
Speaker 3: don't mean, what I mean there is not simply just
12:29
Speaker 3: because we like elves, but because there's a deep sense
12:33
Speaker 3: that elves are the right way to tell this story,
12:36
Speaker 3: or dragons are the right way to tell that story.
12:39
Speaker 3: When you pull on those resources of imagination, you are helping, um,
12:46
Speaker 3: the mind to better encounter reality. And I really think
12:49
Speaker 3: that's fundamentally what he's using that term to mean.
12:53
Speaker 1: Right. And he talks about subcreated reality is that fiction,
12:58
Speaker 1: good fiction, at least, it's not made up. It's dealing
13:02
Speaker 1: with reality, but on a different plane. Yeah. And Lewis
13:07
Speaker 1: says something I think is helpful here regarding the idea
13:09
Speaker 1: of myth. In Myth Became Fact, his essay, he says
13:12
Speaker 1: that myth is the isthmus that connects the peninsular world
13:15
Speaker 1: of thought with that vast continent we really belong to.
13:18
Speaker 1: It is not like truth abstract, nor is it like
13:21
Speaker 1: direct experience bound to the particular. So he says, you know,
13:24
Speaker 1: myth is that meeting place between abstract ideas and the
13:30
Speaker 1: concrete world we actually experience. And so mythopoeia is that
13:36
Speaker 1: act of putting that out there, right? As a world
13:38
Speaker 1: for you as the creator to experience, as well as
13:42
Speaker 1: for the other participants.
13:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And what Lewis is saying there,
13:49
Speaker 3: and I'm sure he is doing this intentionally, is drawing
13:52
Speaker 3: on Aristotle, right, who says of stories in general that poetry,
13:56
Speaker 3: and he means poetry in the larger sense of drama
13:59
Speaker 3: and storytelling as well as verse, right, is the middle
14:03
Speaker 3: place between history and philosophy, right? And that actually poetry
14:08
Speaker 3: is more philosophical, he says, than history, right? nothing against history,
14:13
Speaker 3: of course, but, you know, to kind of understand with
14:16
Speaker 3: that idea, in a sense, why do we need stories? Well,
14:20
Speaker 3: because we need to mediate between our reason and our senses,
14:25
Speaker 3: and the imagination does that. And I think, because this
14:30
Speaker 3: is an analogy, maybe a little ham-fisted that I use
14:32
Speaker 3: with my students, if you think of a gym, there
14:35
Speaker 3: are lots of, and if you saw, I'm glad the
14:37
Speaker 3: camera is cutting off part of my body for this,
14:40
Speaker 3: this is a good thing for this analogy but you
14:43
Speaker 3: know uh in the gym there's all these different um
14:46
Speaker 3: machines and exercise equipment that zero in on particular muscle
14:49
Speaker 3: groups and and think in general literature exercises our imagination
14:55
Speaker 3: so we can reason more deeply about our experience but
14:59
Speaker 3: i think fantasy in particular helps us to reason about
15:03
Speaker 3: the function of imagination it's sort of self-reflexive about the
15:07
Speaker 3: imagination's ability to interpret you know if you read pride
15:10
Speaker 3: and prejudice there's imagination there. Uh, but you can kind
15:14
Speaker 3: of forget that as you're just enjoying the characters, right.
15:17
Speaker 3: That's harder to forget when you're reading Lord of the
15:19
Speaker 3: Rings or playing Zelda, you know, it's sort of outward
15:21
Speaker 3: facing your imagination matters. And I think that's why we're
15:26
Speaker 3: drawn to these things, you know?
15:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great answer. And I like that,
15:33
Speaker 2: that gym and training analogy because it's like, you know,
15:37
Speaker 2: teaching at a classical school, like liberal arts focused, um,
15:42
Speaker 2: I think this is one of the ways we're very
15:43
Speaker 2: fundamentally different than a lot of public schools who are
15:47
Speaker 2: obviously downstream from just like progressive education philosophies of the
15:51
Speaker 2: 20th century. But one thing they sometimes do really well
15:56
Speaker 2: is teach people to work well with like arithmetic and
15:59
Speaker 2: some aspects of natural science. But one thing they hardly
16:03
Speaker 2: ever do well is to train the imagination. I think
16:05
Speaker 2: that's one of the things we do extremely well. And
16:08
Speaker 2: not that we're anti-STEM and humanities focus, but that we're
16:12
Speaker 2: all about, you know, learn poetry, read great novels, read
16:18
Speaker 2: great works of philosophy, learn the broad sweep of history,
16:23
Speaker 2: because it's just as important as learning chemistry, biology, geometry, physics, calculus,
16:32
Speaker 2: you name it, right? Like, we see them all as
16:33
Speaker 2: extremely valuable in making the the well-rounded liberal man, like
16:37
Speaker 2: the liberal liberalities and the Latin, like that's, so I
16:41
Speaker 2: think there's, there's an important point here. And this is
16:43
Speaker 2: also why I want to have these kinds of discussions
16:45
Speaker 2: because sometimes literature and specifically poetry just does not get
16:50
Speaker 2: the light it deserves in our culture. Yeah.
16:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:54
Speaker 3: I agree. It makes what you're saying makes me think
16:56
Speaker 3: of the Jesuit phrase, the cura personalis, you know, care
16:59
Speaker 3: of the whole person. And I think that the dangers
17:03
Speaker 3: of scientism, which is not a friend of science, you know,
17:09
Speaker 3: is that it forgets. And this is Tolkien's point in
17:11
Speaker 3: Mythopoeia that actually you couldn't get to these other arts
17:16
Speaker 3: without the poetic experience. If you become a scientist or
17:20
Speaker 3: a mathematician, it's because your imagination was awakened and captured
17:24
Speaker 3: to that. Um, and, and it's, it's not good to
17:28
Speaker 3: have a kind of ingratitude to the, the wonder that
17:32
Speaker 3: woke up that interest to begin with, you know, and
17:35
Speaker 3: I think classical education grabs that and, and sort of, um,
17:39
Speaker 3: it's sort of like it keeps circulation moving between all
17:42
Speaker 3: the systems of the mind, uh, I think a little
17:45
Speaker 3: more effectively than the let's become the traditional model, you know?
17:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:49
Speaker 1: I mean, it, it strives to make sense of that,
17:52
Speaker 1: that platonic question of like, what is the good that
17:55
Speaker 1: makes good things good? It answers the question, you know,
17:58
Speaker 1: when the student is asking, why do I need to
18:00
Speaker 1: learn this? Well, you could actually provide an answer because
18:03
Speaker 1: it's all ultimately sourced in the good. It's why the
18:07
Speaker 1: medievals would say that theology is the mother science and
18:09
Speaker 1: philosophy is its handmaiden and that everything else ultimately comes
18:13
Speaker 1: from there, from the question of wisdom, which itself is
18:16
Speaker 1: answered theologically. And so everything, all facets of knowledge are
18:20
Speaker 1: actually connected. As opposed to the very nominalist, like, let's
18:26
Speaker 1: just engage in all these different particular things with no
18:28
Speaker 1: unifying purpose.
18:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's absolutely right. Yeah, I forget who pointed
18:35
Speaker 3: out the fact it's interesting thing about the fact that
18:37
Speaker 3: Plato and Aristotle come about 400 years after Homer, you know,
18:42
Speaker 3: and to kind of think about their philosophical dispute. as
18:45
Speaker 3: basically a debate on how to read the myths, you know? Um, and,
18:50
Speaker 3: and so, yeah, there's this kind of, um, this whole
18:53
Speaker 3: sense of seeking the good that even Plato, as much
18:56
Speaker 3: as he critiques the myths is also deeply, deeply engaged
19:00
Speaker 3: with them, you know? Um, and, and so in that sense, um,
19:05
Speaker 3: philosophy is born out of a desire to understand, uh,
19:10
Speaker 3: the human story essentially.
19:11
Speaker 1: Um, No, I feel like we could very generally get
19:18
Speaker 1: to these philosophical ideas for the rest of this conversation.
19:21
Speaker 1: So Josh, do you want to point this more directly
19:23
Speaker 1: towards Zelda?
19:25
Speaker 2: I certainly can, but no, thank you. Thank you so
19:27
Speaker 2: much for bringing those up. I think this kind of
19:29
Speaker 2: ties in. You may have even answered some of this
19:31
Speaker 2: question in what we just said in the past couple
19:35
Speaker 2: of minutes, which is totally fine. So I grew up
19:40
Speaker 2: really attracted to The Legend of Zelda. I grew up
19:43
Speaker 2: attracted to Studio Ghibli movies like Princess Mononoke. things like that,
19:50
Speaker 2: like fantastical settings, both in a Western sense, like knights, swords,
19:56
Speaker 2: and shields, but also in the very limited things that
20:01
Speaker 2: I do know about Japanese culture. I was attracted to
20:04
Speaker 2: things like samurai or warfare in feudal Japan and All
20:09
Speaker 2: of these things.
20:10
Speaker 3: Right.
20:10
Speaker 2: So there's kind of a blend of both of those
20:12
Speaker 2: elements in Zelda. But, you know, why did I have
20:16
Speaker 2: such a difficult time explaining why I liked these things
20:21
Speaker 2: growing up? Why, you know, music, musically, aesthetically and just
20:26
Speaker 2: the world building. I was like, oh, I just I
20:29
Speaker 2: just like the world. And people said, oh, that's not substantial.
20:32
Speaker 2: Why would somebody like me have felt that way?
20:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think our minds are an object of
20:39
Speaker 3: mystery to ourselves to a great extent. You know, I mean,
20:43
Speaker 3: given that, you know, the Imago Dei certainly wouldn't claim
20:48
Speaker 3: to understand God in a complete way because he's mysterious.
20:53
Speaker 3: And we, in some sense, are a reflection of that.
20:56
Speaker 3: And so I think the question of what captures our
20:59
Speaker 3: attention is, There's an aspect to that that we can't
21:03
Speaker 3: because it's pulling on resources that go deeper than that
21:06
Speaker 3: sort of like the ego sort of pinpoint of attention
21:10
Speaker 3: on something, you know. And I think I would say
21:13
Speaker 3: that that's also true of other basic experiences in life.
21:18
Speaker 3: We know scientifically why we like water. But when you're
21:23
Speaker 3: thirsty and it's satisfying, you can't really explain the experience.
21:27
Speaker 3: It's just it's just good after this run or. Why
21:30
Speaker 3: do you like to go out into the sunlight? Well,
21:32
Speaker 3: your skin absorbs vitamin D, but that doesn't explain the
21:36
Speaker 3: full sense of after you kind of had a hard
21:38
Speaker 3: day and you walk out into the light and something
21:42
Speaker 3: is just being satisfied and it takes time to figure
21:45
Speaker 3: out exactly what's going on there. And I think the
21:47
Speaker 3: same is true of these these fantastic images. And this
21:52
Speaker 3: is kind of evocative of Lewis talking about the meeting
21:55
Speaker 3: of desire. I remember having from early, early memories as
22:01
Speaker 3: a child, scenes from The Last Unicorn. And I didn't
22:06
Speaker 3: know what it was. I would describe, oh, there's a
22:09
Speaker 3: unicorn and a butterfly. And no one knew what I
22:11
Speaker 3: was talking about. But for some reason, those images just
22:15
Speaker 3: resonated with something in me And I wanted to know
22:20
Speaker 3: what I was remembering. You know, when I finally got
22:22
Speaker 3: to see the movie, I wasn't disappointed, you know, and
22:25
Speaker 3: then I read the novel and it got even deeper.
22:28
Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of there in some sense,
22:31
Speaker 3: our imagination, I think, moves faster than our reason. It
22:36
Speaker 3: kind of grabs on to a sense of, oh, this
22:38
Speaker 3: is important and there's something rich here. And it takes
22:41
Speaker 3: a lot of time to unfold it and kind of
22:45
Speaker 3: delve and excavate what's going on in there. And I
22:47
Speaker 3: think Zelda games kind of have that aspect. You know,
22:51
Speaker 3: one of the features of Zelda as a game that
22:53
Speaker 3: I love is this aspect of a territory that you've
22:56
Speaker 3: passed through six or seven times. And then you find
23:00
Speaker 3: out that there's a secret. And that secret reminds you
23:04
Speaker 3: that that environment itself is wonderful and you just have
23:08
Speaker 3: gotten used to it, you know? And so, yeah, I
23:11
Speaker 3: think it's about awakening of an intuition that will require
23:16
Speaker 3: further meditation to get into. It's sort of like how
23:19
Speaker 3: scripture talks about, you know, chewing the cud. You need
23:22
Speaker 3: to return to scripture. I'm not putting, of course, all
23:25
Speaker 3: on the same level naturally, but I think there's a
23:28
Speaker 3: similar effect in that, you know, our there are resources
23:32
Speaker 3: in our mind and that sort of deeper archetypal resonance
23:36
Speaker 3: with things that we feel out a sense of meaning.
23:41
Speaker 3: And then we need to circle back and kind of,
23:43
Speaker 3: you know, explore it again, like you do with places
23:46
Speaker 3: in Zelda, you know?
23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Great, great answer. It kind of reminds me too.
23:55
Speaker 2: So we think of this like as poet, like with
23:57
Speaker 2: poetry specifically where a poem is not, like it can
24:02
Speaker 2: be analyzed in a sense and maybe in some way
24:04
Speaker 2: it should be, but a poem it's more than like,
24:07
Speaker 2: it's not like a puzzle, right? Like that's something that
24:10
Speaker 2: we try to do at least in my circle of
24:12
Speaker 2: classical education. Like we don't analyze it and solve it
24:15
Speaker 2: like a puzzle. It's more like taking a step back,
24:19
Speaker 2: appreciating a beautiful painting, like zooming in different places. I
24:23
Speaker 2: always love the T.S. Eliot quote where he says poetry
24:26
Speaker 2: communicates before it is understood.
24:28
Speaker 1: Right.
24:28
Speaker 2: And it's like, I think that's, there's a connection there
24:31
Speaker 2: with something like the world of Zelda where it works,
24:34
Speaker 2: it works on you and you understand it more. And
24:36
Speaker 2: there's something about the imagery and symbolism there. Um, I'm
24:40
Speaker 2: also a fan of the dark souls games and though, um,
24:44
Speaker 2: more dark fantasy, much less cartoonish wouldn't, wouldn't probably wouldn't
24:47
Speaker 2: recommend it to children like I would with most of
24:50
Speaker 2: the Zelda games, but it's the same reason why I
24:52
Speaker 2: love dark souls is it's, it does the same thing
24:56
Speaker 2: with fantasy and it's, I think really a fantasy world
24:58
Speaker 2: in the truest sense because of that.
25:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean that, that sub creative instinct
25:07
Speaker 3: that Tolkien talks about so long on fairy stories.
25:10
Speaker 1: Right.
25:11
Speaker 3: I saw Andrew had a video essay about this. I
25:14
Speaker 3: think in March, you posted this on your, on your podcast. And,
25:18
Speaker 3: you know, I think that that it's, it's interesting to
25:24
Speaker 3: think about the relationship between world building in virtual space
25:28
Speaker 3: versus on the written page. And, you know, I'm still
25:33
Speaker 3: thinking through how Tolkien would think about that because, you know,
25:37
Speaker 3: he obviously says the written word is superior to drama
25:41
Speaker 3: or fairy stories, right? And I agree with him on
25:45
Speaker 3: that fundamentally. But I also think that where the human
25:50
Speaker 3: mind goes, we will need myth there to deal with it.
25:55
Speaker 3: And I think Zelda, one thing Zelda helps us to
25:58
Speaker 3: do is to think about these digital spaces that are so,
26:02
Speaker 3: you know, between social media and our bank accounts and everything,
26:05
Speaker 3: the online space, um, Dark Souls, which I know about
26:10
Speaker 3: from friends, I haven't actually played, but in Zelda, they
26:14
Speaker 3: kind of help us to deal with the fact that
26:16
Speaker 3: so much of our lives are in computers now, and
26:19
Speaker 3: we need adventure there because the human condition, it won't
26:23
Speaker 3: tolerate not having adventure. We need it everywhere we go,
26:26
Speaker 3: you know?
26:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, the connection to the broader digital space, I think
26:31
Speaker 1: it's worthwhile. You know, a lot of, there's definitely this certain,
26:38
Speaker 1: I guess, prejudice toward video games, you know, that they're childish,
26:41
Speaker 1: they're a waste of time, that sort of thing. That,
26:44
Speaker 1: you know, if we're really honest with ourselves, are we
26:47
Speaker 1: benefiting ourselves more with an hour of Twitter or an
26:51
Speaker 1: hour of Zelda? Like, which is more grounding, which allows
26:55
Speaker 1: us to get more in tune with ourselves? I think
26:58
Speaker 1: that's a question worth asking.
27:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I'll trade in my doom scrolling for fighting
27:05
Speaker 3: Ganondorf pretty much any time, you know. That's a great point.
27:13
Speaker 2: So as a follow-up, just to probe a little bit
27:15
Speaker 2: deeper into the Zelda aspects of this, what would you
27:21
Speaker 2: say are some of the most obvious and or the
27:25
Speaker 2: most profound mythopoeic elements in the Legends of Zelda series?
27:31
Speaker 2: And as far as picking a specific game or specific elements,
27:35
Speaker 2: you can kind of take that wherever you want.
27:38
Speaker 3: Well, I think one that comes to mind immediately, of course,
27:40
Speaker 3: is the Triforce. I mean, that's such an iconic symbol
27:44
Speaker 3: that even people who've never played Zelda usually know what
27:47
Speaker 3: it is. If they see it, like I have the
27:50
Speaker 3: Triforce on my wallet, and someone will say, is that
27:52
Speaker 3: the Triforce? And they don't say, is that a Triforce?
27:55
Speaker 3: They say the Triforce. They understand the language, even if
27:59
Speaker 3: they've not encountered the game. And I think that idea of...
28:04
Speaker 3: manifesting higher order concepts in a physical way, the talisman,
28:12
Speaker 3: that sort of enchanted object that makes, it's only, you know,
28:15
Speaker 3: you mentioned Plato, Andrew, it's sort of like this kind
28:18
Speaker 3: of platonic manifestation of the harmony of courage, wisdom, and power.
28:27
Speaker 3: And I think in that sense, what it's, as a
28:31
Speaker 3: mythopoeic symbol, The Triforce is teaching us about what Plato
28:36
Speaker 3: would call the unity of the virtues. To say that, well,
28:40
Speaker 3: you can't really use power well if you're not courageous.
28:45
Speaker 3: You're going to use it in a cowardly way, which
28:47
Speaker 3: Ganondorf falls into. He ends up crapping himself in a
28:50
Speaker 3: tower because he knows that he's created a lot of
28:53
Speaker 3: hatred for himself. And you're also not going to use
28:57
Speaker 3: power well if you're not wise. Um, but likewise, you
29:01
Speaker 3: can't really be courageous if you're not willing to develop
29:04
Speaker 3: your power and you actually, you know, Plato talks about
29:08
Speaker 3: this too. You can't actually have a person who is brave,
29:11
Speaker 3: but not wise. Um, but you also can't have a
29:15
Speaker 3: person who's wise, but not brave. And, and I love
29:19
Speaker 3: Plato and I love reading about Plato, but I think
29:21
Speaker 3: there is something about the true, um, nature of those
29:26
Speaker 3: virtues that, kind of clicking together and enriching each other,
29:31
Speaker 3: that the Triforce just makes sense for me in a
29:35
Speaker 3: way that I didn't get exactly out of reading Plato,
29:38
Speaker 3: even though he helped me in the idea, you know.
29:42
Speaker 3: And so I think that sort of concrete imagery, you
29:46
Speaker 3: understand the idea that a triangle is not a triangle
29:49
Speaker 3: without three points. And so the virtue is not the
29:52
Speaker 3: virtue without its two related virtues, right? And so I
29:58
Speaker 3: think that idea of making a wish, well, in a sense,
30:03
Speaker 3: if you enjoin any particular action, if you pursue any outcome,
30:09
Speaker 3: if you're going to do it well, you're going to
30:11
Speaker 3: have to, in some sense, have power to do it.
30:13
Speaker 3: You're going to have to have a little courage. Like,
30:16
Speaker 3: it's a little scary to be on this podcast. What
30:19
Speaker 3: if I say something silly and now it's out there
30:21
Speaker 3: for the world, you know, and well, I'm going to
30:23
Speaker 3: have to use my my wisdom to try and say
30:26
Speaker 3: something that makes a little bit of sense. And I'm
30:28
Speaker 3: going to have to have the fortitude, which is a
30:30
Speaker 3: kind of power to deal with it. If I say
30:33
Speaker 3: something a little clunky and that's that's OK, you know.
30:36
Speaker 3: And so I think that idea then has like almost
30:41
Speaker 3: like a mathematical equation and a lot of repeatable application
30:46
Speaker 3: in other places. A little more concretely, though, Tolkien talks
30:52
Speaker 3: about the arresting image, that sort of arresting strangeness. And
31:00
Speaker 3: in Ocarina of Time, on the tree that Link lives in,
31:03
Speaker 3: at the base, there's this little drawing he did, maybe
31:06
Speaker 3: from one of his visions, of a little figure, kind
31:10
Speaker 3: of himself, fighting a monster with Navi, a little fairy companion.
31:16
Speaker 3: That's the base arresting image from which the fantasy of
31:21
Speaker 3: Zelda is built, right? And you might say, well, what
31:25
Speaker 3: a childish little drawing. Well, of course, but childish drawings
31:30
Speaker 3: are where the great painter started. And if you let
31:34
Speaker 3: that childish drawing continue, it might then go from childish
31:38
Speaker 3: to childlike drawing. and to have a childlike wonder for
31:41
Speaker 3: drawing as an adult. And I think the same is
31:45
Speaker 3: true of the adventures that Zelda is calling us to.
31:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. It kind of reminds me of, and I'm
31:54
Speaker 2: going to paraphrase it a little bit because I don't
31:55
Speaker 2: know exactly what the direct quote is, but C.S. Lewis
31:59
Speaker 2: kind of talks about this idea of writing out of
32:02
Speaker 2: these images, in a sense, where it's like, people are like, oh,
32:06
Speaker 2: so you're just like, elaborately thought out this entire, like,
32:09
Speaker 2: allegory for, like, the entire Christian story, and he's kind
32:12
Speaker 2: of like, no, like, it's like, I'm a Christian, but, like,
32:14
Speaker 2: I was really just thinking about, like, this image of, like,
32:16
Speaker 2: a faun in this lamppost in, like, the winter, something
32:19
Speaker 2: along those lines, and, like, just Narnia just built out
32:22
Speaker 2: of that, right? It's not just, like, he's not just
32:25
Speaker 2: sitting there, like, scientifically precisely just writing everything out, being like,
32:29
Speaker 2: how can I tie this in with my Christian beliefs? So,
32:32
Speaker 2: it flows out of us, right? Like, it's more than
32:35
Speaker 2: It's cerebral in a sense, but it's more than that
32:37
Speaker 2: and different than that in some other ways as well.
32:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's why we talk about an
32:44
Speaker 3: artistic vision, not an artistic argument, right? I mean, I
32:48
Speaker 3: was thinking there's kind of, of course, you were asking,
32:51
Speaker 3: you know, why do I find these things so captivating
32:56
Speaker 3: without being able to articulate them? I think it's probably
33:00
Speaker 3: in the same essay collection where I think it's on
33:02
Speaker 3: stories in that collection. Where Lewis says, well, good artists
33:07
Speaker 3: put what they mean to into a text, but great
33:10
Speaker 3: ones put more than they mean, right? And there's an
33:14
Speaker 3: aspect that a great artist actually learns how to take
33:17
Speaker 3: that maybe youthful kind of wonderment and capture it enough
33:25
Speaker 3: to retain it within the net of words or the
33:29
Speaker 3: virtual space they create without controlling it too closely. You know,
33:34
Speaker 3: if there's a place where George McDonald, I think it's
33:38
Speaker 3: called the Fantastic Imagination, where he says that fairy tales
33:42
Speaker 3: are kind of like butterflies, right? You kind of have
33:45
Speaker 3: to let the butterfly be a butterfly. And it's like
33:48
Speaker 3: if someone if you're looking at a butterfly and someone
33:50
Speaker 3: comes along and says, well, what's your reason for looking
33:53
Speaker 3: at that butterfly? Give me an argument. You're like, well,
33:55
Speaker 3: you don't understand what it is to stare at butterflies
33:59
Speaker 3: like they're just beautiful and it just does something for you.
34:03
Speaker 3: And the appreciator of art and the artist seem to
34:05
Speaker 3: both kind of have that instinct, you know?
34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. In probably the same essay you were alluding to,
34:12
Speaker 1: I always mix up his on stories and on three
34:15
Speaker 1: ways of writing for children. But one of those, he
34:19
Speaker 1: says that, you know, a bad storyteller is going to
34:22
Speaker 1: ask the question, what do people need to hear? And
34:25
Speaker 1: then you just get very condescending and really just propagandic.
34:28
Speaker 1: Or you can ask what's better is what's, What's the
34:32
Speaker 1: story that I need to hear? At least then it's
34:34
Speaker 1: a bit more existential, more introspective, a bit more humble.
34:37
Speaker 1: But he said that the best storytellers ask the question,
34:40
Speaker 1: what's the story that I have to tell? And that's
34:42
Speaker 1: naturally going to pull out of your spiritual imaginative roots.
34:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. I think there's this aspect of trusting our
34:51
Speaker 3: imaginative instincts as having something real to them. And I
34:57
Speaker 3: think this is a point that, you know, for example,
34:59
Speaker 3: Wordsworth deals with a lot in his writing. those memories
35:05
Speaker 3: that stick with you, they stick with you for a reason.
35:08
Speaker 3: You might have the wrong reason, but don't abandon the
35:11
Speaker 3: memory for that reason. And I think the same is
35:15
Speaker 3: true of those bits of fantasy that just something about
35:19
Speaker 3: them sparkles and draws the eye. And we should probably
35:23
Speaker 3: listen to that Um, you know, uh, again, it's kind
35:27
Speaker 3: of like the butterfly in the last uniform. Don't listen
35:29
Speaker 3: to me. Listen, you know, and I think the author
35:31
Speaker 3: kind of has to say that too, you know?
35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Um, so I guess I'm going to kind
35:41
Speaker 2: of have you make an, uh, an apology here for
35:44
Speaker 2: us just because there's something I've heard from a lot
35:47
Speaker 2: of people who, um, and it's not a it's certainly
35:51
Speaker 2: a good thing in a lot of ways to be
35:53
Speaker 2: into games that have just really explicitly well-told complex stories
35:58
Speaker 2: with a lot of obvious philosophical depth. I mean, we've
36:01
Speaker 2: talked about like Knights of the Old Republic one and two,
36:04
Speaker 2: especially two in that regard on this. And that's a
36:07
Speaker 2: great example of that to me. But yeah, something I
36:09
Speaker 2: hear is that sometimes people will be like, well, you know, yeah,
36:13
Speaker 2: Zelda has more writing and substance to it. That's obvious
36:17
Speaker 2: than like something like Mario or, or maybe Donkey Kong
36:21
Speaker 2: in some ways, but Zelda's still a little bit generic
36:25
Speaker 2: with generic characters. It has a very predictable story. The
36:28
Speaker 2: protagonist is boring. It's not well-written like something like a
36:33
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy game might be, which has a bunch of
36:35
Speaker 2: dialogue and well-fleshed-out backstories. So how would you defend that?
36:43
Speaker 2: What would be your defense that you would give if
36:45
Speaker 2: somebody said that to you just randomly somewhere?
36:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that in a way that argument often,
36:55
Speaker 3: it sort of sounds like, you know, the argument against
37:00
Speaker 3: Tolkien as well, where it's sort of like, well, all
37:02
Speaker 3: the characters are sort of flat with a couple of exceptions.
37:07
Speaker 3: Like there's only Boromir or something, right? But actually most
37:10
Speaker 3: of the characters are much more complicated than it first appears, right? So,
37:15
Speaker 3: I mean, for one, Frodo, right? is much more plagued
37:20
Speaker 3: by the Nightmare of the One Ring than you really
37:23
Speaker 3: ever understand until you get to Sam's brief experience with it,
37:28
Speaker 3: and it's filling his head with these thoughts, you know?
37:32
Speaker 3: And you realize Frodo, as writing Lord of the Rings,
37:35
Speaker 3: is actually withholding from the page probably a lot of
37:39
Speaker 3: torment and anguish that you don't really see. I think
37:42
Speaker 3: what it is is Tolkien often treats his characters with
37:46
Speaker 3: dignity and subtlety, and you have to sit with it
37:49
Speaker 3: to kind of see what's really going on. He's not
37:53
Speaker 3: hasty about sort of voyeuristically going into the inner workings
37:58
Speaker 3: of a particular character. And I think in the same way,
38:01
Speaker 3: Zelda is often very subtle with its portrayal of what's
38:06
Speaker 3: going on. So there's environmental storytelling and there are, there
38:10
Speaker 3: are things that you can miss. Zelda wants you to
38:13
Speaker 3: pay attention to see you could be missing something, which
38:17
Speaker 3: is actually a lot more like real life. If you
38:18
Speaker 3: think about it, like you have a person who you're
38:21
Speaker 3: sort of frustrated with them and you think, Oh, they're
38:23
Speaker 3: always late. They're always late all the time and you're
38:25
Speaker 3: just annoyed by it. And what a, horny thing to
38:28
Speaker 3: be late all the time. What a stock trope, you know?
38:31
Speaker 3: And you have the same thing with Link at the
38:34
Speaker 3: opening of Ocarina of Time. He's a lazy boy, says Navi.
38:38
Speaker 3: How can Hyrule depend on him, right? Well, that's a
38:42
Speaker 3: little bit stock. But actually, the more you think about it,
38:46
Speaker 3: this is someone whose mother died when he was in infancy,
38:50
Speaker 3: who is with the people who is not his own.
38:53
Speaker 3: He's deeply alone. He doesn't even have a fairy. which
38:56
Speaker 3: is a wonderful stroke of mythopoeic genius too, because it's
39:00
Speaker 3: like this, no one in this world has a fairy,
39:03
Speaker 3: but then they immediately are like, you know, this poor
39:05
Speaker 3: bully who doesn't even have a fairy. And we're like,
39:07
Speaker 3: oh no, you know, how could, how could that be? And,
39:11
Speaker 3: and he's also, he's also having nightmares throughout the night,
39:14
Speaker 3: which is stopping him from sleeping well. And that's why
39:17
Speaker 3: he's sleeping during the day. Right. And so it, it
39:20
Speaker 3: may look generic, But actually, the game is telling us,
39:25
Speaker 3: pay attention. There's more to the ins and outs that's
39:29
Speaker 3: going on in a person's life. And I actually think
39:32
Speaker 3: that there's a kind of storytelling impatience where we want
39:35
Speaker 3: a lot of flash and bang. But if you pay
39:39
Speaker 3: attention to the particulars of each story, you'll find that
39:43
Speaker 3: there is a lot of nuance and a lot of
39:45
Speaker 3: subtlety there. But the other thing I want to say
39:48
Speaker 3: about it, too, is and this is, I guess, maybe
39:52
Speaker 3: kind of a Lewis type move. Let's say something for
39:56
Speaker 3: the generic. I mean, the word generic comes from genre,
40:00
Speaker 3: which means, you know, a category story. But genre also
40:04
Speaker 3: comes from the word gene and the word gender. So
40:10
Speaker 3: you're like a story about a man and a woman
40:12
Speaker 3: falling in love. How generic. Well, that's also how procreation,
40:15
Speaker 3: a new life comes into being. Let's not sneer at
40:19
Speaker 3: these basic things. And, you know, just as your body
40:22
Speaker 3: needs water and your soul needs transcendence, your imagination needs
40:28
Speaker 3: a boy with his fairy fighting a dragon. And I
40:31
Speaker 3: don't think we should roll our eyes at those archetypes,
40:35
Speaker 3: which are different from stereotypes, as generic. I think there's
40:39
Speaker 3: It's kind of like, I guess, and sorry, I'm kind
40:41
Speaker 3: of talking long on this one, but it's a little
40:44
Speaker 3: bit like the difference between a cliche and a proverb.
40:49
Speaker 3: You know, a real cliche is just a lazy grab at, like,
40:55
Speaker 3: it's like a false wisdom. Proverb, you might be tired
40:59
Speaker 3: of hearing it, but if you really sit with it,
41:02
Speaker 3: you'll see that it's a truth you do not want
41:04
Speaker 3: to give up. And I would say that the generic
41:07
Speaker 3: qualities of Ocarina of Time and others, all the games,
41:10
Speaker 3: are exactly that.
41:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, all very well said. In my opinion, you've successfully
41:19
Speaker 2: defended yourself. Of course, Socrates would have many more questions
41:24
Speaker 2: for you, but I also believe that Socrates would have
41:26
Speaker 2: better taste than those kinds of questions, too. So I'm
41:31
Speaker 2: going to choose to believe that, and I think that's
41:33
Speaker 2: very justifiable.
41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm with you.
41:37
Speaker 2: So we hinted this way earlier about this idea of,
41:41
Speaker 2: you know, video games having meaning, trying to connect the
41:44
Speaker 2: Academy with that. Should at least, and we'll say at
41:49
Speaker 2: least the mainline Zelda games here, but should the mainline
41:53
Speaker 2: Zelda games be a part of our children's education? Like
41:57
Speaker 2: their literary education growing up, like having them play those
42:01
Speaker 2: video games as part of their upbringing and training them
42:05
Speaker 2: for being adults one day and doing virtuous things in
42:09
Speaker 2: the world?
42:11
Speaker 3: I think so. I would say actually probably not some
42:15
Speaker 3: of the more recent Zeldas. I think Breath of the
42:18
Speaker 3: Wild and Tears of the Kingdom actually are, as much
42:22
Speaker 3: as I enjoyed those games, I don't know if you've
42:25
Speaker 3: touched them at all, but They are a bit more sprawling.
42:29
Speaker 3: And so I think they actually kind of have the
42:32
Speaker 3: temptation for indulgence that video games are more associated with.
42:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, I want my son or daughter to learn
42:41
Speaker 3: the temerity to go ahead and walk into the darkness
42:44
Speaker 3: of the Deku Tree and feel the fear of seeing
42:49
Speaker 3: Queen Goma gazing with that malevolent eye from the ceiling.
42:54
Speaker 3: And learn, it's that Chestertonian desire for our children to
42:57
Speaker 3: be brave enough to face the monsters. Just as I
43:00
Speaker 3: want my child to know the Hobbit, I think there
43:03
Speaker 3: are things in Zelda that are wholesome and good for
43:08
Speaker 3: them to be able to encounter, you know?
43:14
Speaker 1: So I do want to ask you a quick follow-up
43:16
Speaker 1: based off what you said about the newer Zelda games,
43:18
Speaker 1: which I haven't played. Would you say that the value
43:22
Speaker 1: of video games like Zelda is principally found in the more,
43:26
Speaker 1: I guess, linear stories versus the open world games. Is
43:29
Speaker 1: that kind of what you were hinting.
43:33
Speaker 3: At? Yeah, roughly speaking. I mean, I did find value
43:36
Speaker 3: in playing those more open world games, which, I mean,
43:39
Speaker 3: in some sense, all the 3D Zaldas are kind of
43:41
Speaker 3: open world, but they are still linear, as you said, right? Yeah,
43:46
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that Breath of the Wild and
43:48
Speaker 3: Tears of the Kingdom, those games, they're less symbolically saturated
43:54
Speaker 3: because there's just a lot of plot. So the essay
43:58
Speaker 3: on stories that you alluded to by C.S. Lewis talks
44:03
Speaker 3: about the difference of really kind of experiencing, like, why
44:06
Speaker 3: this thing, right? Why the danger of a giant versus
44:09
Speaker 3: the danger of an army, right? And I think the
44:12
Speaker 3: more linear games preserve that sense of the ratio of
44:18
Speaker 3: sort of plot and gameplay to symbolic register. Whereas I
44:23
Speaker 3: think there's larger, more sprawling games kind of lose some
44:27
Speaker 3: of that. I think they actually lose some of that
44:30
Speaker 3: placement of poetry to philosophy and delve almost into kind
44:34
Speaker 3: of like a mythopoetic history, which is interesting and has
44:38
Speaker 3: its value. but it's just less symbolically rich and a
44:43
Speaker 3: little more vulnerable to indulgence, basically, I think. Yeah.
44:51
Speaker 2: It's definitely an interesting perspective, and this is something I've
44:53
Speaker 2: thought of a lot just playing video games, too, because
44:57
Speaker 2: I'm usually, maybe sometimes in the minority camp, not always
45:03
Speaker 2: broadly in this way, but Usually I actually prefer a
45:07
Speaker 2: lot of the installments in a series that are not
45:10
Speaker 2: the big open world one. I love the three Dark
45:13
Speaker 2: Souls games, Demon's Souls, and Bloodborne. I did like Elden
45:18
Speaker 2: Ring a lot, but it was the first truly open
45:22
Speaker 2: world from soft RPG. It was actually the one that
45:25
Speaker 2: I probably enjoyed the least in a sense. I never
45:31
Speaker 2: played Tears of the Kingdom, but I did play Breath
45:33
Speaker 2: of the Wild, and I felt I felt quite similarly
45:35
Speaker 2: about that as I did with Elden Ring as well.
45:40
Speaker 2: And so maybe there is something to that, right? I
45:42
Speaker 2: think I kind of like it when, as you said,
45:45
Speaker 2: the symbolism, the aesthetics, such things are kind of more condensed,
45:51
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit more saturated into just like less
45:55
Speaker 2: area and less world to be explored in a sense.
45:57
Speaker 2: Still a lot, still a very vast... adventure game type
46:01
Speaker 2: of world. Somewhat linear in a way, but I usually
46:06
Speaker 2: kind of like my worlds less open, so maybe you
46:10
Speaker 2: just provide me a reason to think on more about that.
46:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what you're saying makes me think about Tolkien's distinction,
46:17
Speaker 3: and I know you gentlemen are very familiar with this,
46:20
Speaker 3: but the primary and secondary world idea, and I think
46:24
Speaker 3: that Ocarina of Time, for example, ends, and you think,
46:29
Speaker 3: you know, 1998, Ocarina of Time comes out. It's probably mostly, like,
46:34
Speaker 3: young-ish players initially. You know, there's a range there, of course.
46:41
Speaker 3: I'm still playing Ocarina of Time. I just was playing
46:43
Speaker 3: some of it yesterday, you know, that I never stopped. But,
46:47
Speaker 3: you know, the ending sequence where Link has returned to
46:52
Speaker 3: an age that's probably the age of your average player
46:55
Speaker 3: is then saying, okay, now go.
46:58
Speaker 3: Put the game down you finished it now go live
47:01
Speaker 3: a life with this understanding in hand whereas i think
47:06
Speaker 3: that the kind of repeated endlessness of of breath of
47:10
Speaker 3: the wild is more like well now go find another
47:13
Speaker 3: shrine or go play the game more you know and
47:16
Speaker 3: and i'm not i i think there is value to
47:18
Speaker 3: how a game like that helps us to kind of
47:21
Speaker 3: contextualize and enrich the ideas of the previous games But
47:27
Speaker 3: I think there's a deeper love for the primary world
47:31
Speaker 3: in some of those more structured games where they are
47:35
Speaker 3: not trying. It's this kind of like Lewis on authorship, right?
47:39
Speaker 3: The game is not trying to simply be a spectacle,
47:42
Speaker 3: but be a pair of spectacles for the world that
47:45
Speaker 3: you actually live in. And I think it's a little
47:48
Speaker 3: easier to do that with those more um, symbolically defined
47:53
Speaker 3: gaming experiences than say like world of Warcraft, which I
47:56
Speaker 3: think is actually kind of toxically endless, you know? Um,
48:01
Speaker 3: and I, I'm not, I'm not trying to be negative
48:03
Speaker 3: to anyone who's a fan of that. I, there's value
48:06
Speaker 3: to it for sure, but kind of, kind of bothers
48:08
Speaker 3: me in that way.
48:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. In, in, in my response to that, I think
48:15
Speaker 1: that I largely agree that a very structured story is
48:19
Speaker 1: perhaps more poetic. I think that where the open-world kind
48:22
Speaker 1: of games can go well is when there's a real
48:25
Speaker 1: emphasis on the story that develops from the decision-making that
48:29
Speaker 1: you do, when it becomes that kind of open-ended. At
48:32
Speaker 1: that point, you get into the realm of responsibility and
48:35
Speaker 1: morality and whatnot. But yeah, if the game is just
48:38
Speaker 1: open of... Right. But if the game is open in
48:41
Speaker 1: the sense of, yeah, you just keep doing the same
48:44
Speaker 1: repetitive tasks, then that's not very uplifting. But yeah, so
48:49
Speaker 1: I think it largely depends on, I mean, even if
48:51
Speaker 1: it's a structured story, it depends on what's the story
48:53
Speaker 1: that's being told. That it all comes down to, like,
48:57
Speaker 1: what is the purpose? Is the purpose to do something meaningful?
49:01
Speaker 1: Or is the purpose just to kind of get into
49:04
Speaker 1: these endless addiction cycles?
49:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. I will say, even though I have these critiques,
49:14
Speaker 3: Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom,
49:17
Speaker 3: do you have.
49:19
Speaker 3: These shrines, you know, that are they've been critiqued for
49:22
Speaker 3: having them because it's not as they're not as good
49:24
Speaker 3: as dungeons. But you do have this continual sort of
49:28
Speaker 3: repetitive experience of. finding the sacred space and being either
49:32
Speaker 3: a spirit orb or a light of blessing. And I
49:35
Speaker 3: read an essay, I don't know who it was off
49:38
Speaker 3: the top of my head, but they were comparing it
49:40
Speaker 3: to taking Holy Communion as this kind of like repetitive
49:44
Speaker 3: experience of seeking out the sacred again and again. And
49:48
Speaker 3: I thought that was kind of an interesting point that
49:50
Speaker 3: I think that sometimes a recognition that sacred experiences are
49:58
Speaker 3: actually often more frequent than we notice. And those larger
50:02
Speaker 3: open world games can maybe give us maybe a richer
50:09
Speaker 3: experience of that mapping on. I just think then it
50:13
Speaker 3: falls a little more to the player to internally figure
50:17
Speaker 3: out how do I regulate my attachment to playing this
50:20
Speaker 3: game rather than the game itself kind of saying, okay,
50:25
Speaker 3: now it's time to stop and kind of think about
50:29
Speaker 3: what it means, you know? Yeah.
50:32
Speaker 1: I think that, well, I can appreciate what that framing
50:34
Speaker 1: is trying to do in trying to put a positive
50:36
Speaker 1: spin on these repetitive things that you can find in games.
50:40
Speaker 1: I think that where it falls short is the repetition
50:43
Speaker 1: that we engage with things like communion is there's actually
50:47
Speaker 1: substance there. Right. Right. Yeah.
50:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Like actually breathing in and breathing out every day,
50:55
Speaker 3: all day is actually keeping you alive in a way
50:58
Speaker 3: that the repetition of a role-playing, grinding game kind of
51:05
Speaker 3: doesn't do.
51:06
Speaker 1: Right. Because whether we're talking about things that keep us
51:08
Speaker 1: alive physically or spiritually... At that point, we're not just
51:12
Speaker 1: engaging with the imagination, which is where games do their
51:16
Speaker 1: best and engaging with imagination. And so I don't know.
51:19
Speaker 1: I can't totally buy the, you know, I keep going
51:22
Speaker 1: to these shrines in Zelda and that's like communion. I
51:24
Speaker 1: appreciate what it's trying to do in theory, but I
51:26
Speaker 1: feel like it's mixing categories of what it is that
51:28
Speaker 1: games are meant to accomplish. Yeah.
51:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
51:32
Speaker 3: I fundamentally agree with that.
51:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
51:37
Speaker 2: I appreciate those thoughts. There's a lot to consider. I
51:39
Speaker 2: think they're from both sides of the open world and
51:42
Speaker 2: the non-open world, if you may. But yeah, I think
51:46
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, too, this is an
51:48
Speaker 2: open world game. It's really about probably not even much
51:52
Speaker 2: as open world as it is how substantial can you
51:55
Speaker 2: make that open world. Even a game like Elden Ring,
51:58
Speaker 2: I can see that it's there. It's just that, honestly,
52:00
Speaker 2: a lot of that for me is kind of subjective
52:02
Speaker 2: because the season of life in which I played it
52:04
Speaker 2: and I just had way less time um, to play
52:07
Speaker 2: that game than I did when, uh, I think it
52:10
Speaker 2: was in like fifth or sixth grade when Oblivion was
52:13
Speaker 2: released on the Xbox 360. And I still had, I
52:17
Speaker 2: had plenty of time to play, um, a couple hundred
52:20
Speaker 2: hours of Oblivion. And I also played World of Warcraft
52:24
Speaker 2: and RuneScape around those same times. And, uh, exploring all
52:27
Speaker 2: the options in Oblivion was certainly a lot more than, uh,
52:30
Speaker 2: you know, how I don't even want to know countless
52:33
Speaker 2: hours that I spent, uh, chopping wood and selling you
52:36
Speaker 2: logs and runescapes, so I... Lots to chew on there,
52:40
Speaker 2: a lot to think about before I begin to say more.
52:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I do think there is something to
52:47
Speaker 3: be said for having a little bandwidth for just for play,
52:52
Speaker 3: you know, and to kind of delight in that to
52:56
Speaker 3: some extent is not necessarily bad, and it reminds me of,
53:00
Speaker 3: I had a discussion with a student who was frustrated
53:04
Speaker 3: by someone who was she was talking with who was
53:09
Speaker 3: saying that like playing Minecraft is like just as satisfying
53:13
Speaker 3: as actually building something with your hands which of course
53:17
Speaker 3: I think I would have to say as a lover
53:19
Speaker 3: of the primary world that that's absurd of course building
53:21
Speaker 3: something with your hands is more important than playing Minecraft
53:25
Speaker 3: however I do think that building something in Minecraft can
53:29
Speaker 3: give you an experience that can help you to imagine
53:32
Speaker 3: building things more richly, and that is valuable too, right?
53:37
Speaker 3: Provided you take it as something to enrich rather than
53:41
Speaker 3: to replace. And I think that's where, like, kind of
53:45
Speaker 3: what Andrew's saying about Holy Communion. You know, you don't
53:48
Speaker 3: want these virtual spaces to feel like they're replacing the adventure.
53:54
Speaker 3: And I think that's a really.
53:56
Speaker 3: It can be difficult to suss out, you know?
53:59
Speaker 1: And I think that if we're really... honest with ourselves,
54:02
Speaker 1: that discernment's not difficult. Whatever we're engaging with, to ask myself,
54:07
Speaker 1: is whatever I'm doing, is this actually benefiting my life?
54:10
Speaker 1: And if you're honest with yourself, you generally know the
54:12
Speaker 1: answer to that question. And I think that's a good
54:15
Speaker 1: safeguard about where we could get lost in these virtual
54:18
Speaker 1: spaces versus where they can inspire us. I've talked to
54:20
Speaker 1: many people who have gone on to get PhDs in
54:23
Speaker 1: history in part because they played Civilization as a kid.
54:27
Speaker 1: These things can inspire us in the right direction, We
54:30
Speaker 1: have to be honest with ourselves regarding what direction they're
54:35
Speaker 1: taking us.
54:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
54:42
Speaker 2: So, Anthony, what would you recommend if somebody wanted to
54:47
Speaker 2: get into what we've talked about further? And obviously, references
54:51
Speaker 2: to the Lewis and Tolkien essays and sources, but specifically
54:56
Speaker 2: getting further into one study on these topics in Zelda,
55:01
Speaker 2: but just in video games broadly as well.
55:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, well, I have a couple of books here
55:08
Speaker 3: on my desk. I could, I could do a little
55:10
Speaker 3: show and tell if that would be all right. Uh,
55:12
Speaker 3: this one is called the psychology of Zelda, uh, Anthony Bean. Uh,
55:18
Speaker 3: and it's, it's got a great hero's journey essay on there.
55:21
Speaker 3: And I think that idea of thinking about the archetypes, um,
55:24
Speaker 3: and some of those more kind of union, um, approaches
55:27
Speaker 3: to Zelda is really, really good. Another one that I
55:31
Speaker 3: like is this book. It's called The Legend of Zelda
55:34
Speaker 3: and Theology. So these are mostly Zelda and books. This
55:37
Speaker 3: is Jonathan Walls. And there's a wonderful essay by Philip.
55:43
Speaker 3: Is it Philip Talon? Let me see here. I think
55:45
Speaker 3: I've got that right. Yeah, Philip Talon. on just kind
55:49
Speaker 3: of a great last name for, for Zelda, um, subcreation, uh, and,
55:55
Speaker 3: and Tolkien, uh, there. So that's, that's one. And then also, uh,
56:00
Speaker 3: Luke Puddy's, uh, Legend of Zelda and Philosophy. Um, and, uh,
56:05
Speaker 3: he's got, uh, a nice piece there on kind of
56:08
Speaker 3: some of the questions we're talking about on 10, um,
56:11
Speaker 3: can video games be art? Which, of course, I would
56:15
Speaker 3: say yes to that, and so does he. So those
56:20
Speaker 3: are three good books. There are things like Game Studies,
56:26
Speaker 3: which is an online journal that one can read. There's also, though,
56:31
Speaker 3: in the more mythopoeic vein, Mythlore. uh the the the
56:37
Speaker 3: journal of the mythic society right um so those are
56:40
Speaker 3: some places that you can go i'm not really um
56:43
Speaker 3: a video game scholar by trade i'm a medievalist that
56:47
Speaker 3: kind of played around in the the camp of a
56:50
Speaker 3: video game scholarship a little bit uh but those are
56:53
Speaker 3: some some examples i would give.
56:55
Speaker 2: I gotta say i absolutely love the uh word play
57:00
Speaker 2: on uh different pop culture and philosophy titles. I link
57:05
Speaker 2: before I am. I'm not a Hunger Games guy by
57:11
Speaker 2: any means. I genuinely don't know much about it, but
57:13
Speaker 2: the pop culture and philosophy, it's like the Hunger Games
57:17
Speaker 2: and philosophy and it's like a critique of pure treason.
57:20
Speaker 2: I love these things. Some people are probably cringing right
57:23
Speaker 2: now at that, but I don't care if they are also.
57:28
Speaker 2: It's fine if you do or don't like it.
57:30
Speaker 3: You know, uh, it's, it's Samuel Johnson, I think who
57:35
Speaker 3: said that puns are the lowest form of wits. And, uh, I,
57:38
Speaker 3: I respectfully disagree. Um, I think, I think puns are, um,
57:43
Speaker 3: you know, uh, great little, uh, reminders of the philosophy
57:48
Speaker 3: of words, which obviously Tolkien, um, teaches us all about.
57:53
Speaker 2: There's an art to using a pun while it's just
57:55
Speaker 2: like any other like poetic device, right? I mean, um,
57:59
Speaker 2: Irony is sometimes misunderstood. Sometimes irony is just poorly done,
58:02
Speaker 2: but it doesn't mean that irony is not good in
58:05
Speaker 2: a sense. There's really strong uses of irony, and there's
58:11
Speaker 2: some weak ones. There's a lot in between. I think
58:14
Speaker 2: puns are the same way.
58:16
Speaker 3: And the same with games, right? I mean, games can
58:18
Speaker 3: be indulgent and ridiculous, and the player of the game
58:23
Speaker 3: can be indulgent and fail to find deeper meaning, but
58:29
Speaker 3: abuse doesn't cancel use, as Tolkien reminds us.
58:34
Speaker 1: Other than Zelda, are there any other major games or
58:36
Speaker 1: franchises that you would endorse or that have a special
58:39
Speaker 1: place for you?
58:42
Speaker 3: Well, one series that I actually am quite fond of
58:46
Speaker 3: and was recently remastered for the Switch, well, for several platforms,
58:52
Speaker 3: this would be more along the lines of what Josh
58:55
Speaker 3: was saying about Dark Souls. But I really am fond
58:58
Speaker 3: of the Legacy of Kain series, Blow Gnome in 1
59:02
Speaker 3: and 2, Soul Reaver 1 and 2 and Defiance. And
59:05
Speaker 3: they're much darker. They're not as sort of whimsical as
59:11
Speaker 3: the Zelda games are. But they have a kind of
59:15
Speaker 3: maybe a sort of undead mythopoeic kind of imagination and
59:20
Speaker 3: dealing with a lot of questions about fate and free
59:23
Speaker 3: will and The image of vampire as this distortion of
59:30
Speaker 3: what it means to be human that I really am
59:35
Speaker 3: fascinated by. And I think a lot of the questions
59:38
Speaker 3: that those kinds of stories bring up about, like, what
59:41
Speaker 3: is the soul? What is the soul's relationship to the body?
59:46
Speaker 3: Which the mind-body problem also has to do with questions
59:49
Speaker 3: we were talking about, like, what is a poem? Is
59:52
Speaker 3: the poem the reading of the poem or the text,
59:54
Speaker 3: you know? And so I think those games have a
59:58
Speaker 3: lot of rich value to them. Another series, I actually
1:00:04
Speaker 3: wrote an essay on Boethian philosophy and a video game
1:00:08
Speaker 3: called Medieval that was for the PlayStation re-released a few
1:00:14
Speaker 3: years ago, where you play a reanimated skeleton who was
1:00:19
Speaker 3: defeated embarrassingly in battle, like right at the beginning, he's
1:00:23
Speaker 3: leading the charge and dies. And then he gets to
1:00:25
Speaker 3: come back and fight his way, you know, through the hordes.
1:00:30
Speaker 3: So that's another game that I have appreciation for. Cool.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Josh, do you have any other questions that we haven't
1:00:40
Speaker 1: gotten to yet?
1:00:42
Speaker 2: No, I've gone through all of mine, so wherever you
1:00:44
Speaker 2: guys want to go or if you want to end
1:00:45
Speaker 2: it now, it's up to you.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: All right, fantastic. Anthony, is there anything else that you
1:00:49
Speaker 1: feel like we should talk about?
1:00:53
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have anything off the top of
1:00:56
Speaker 3: my head. I had some notes here that... just in
1:01:00
Speaker 3: case you asked me any hard questions that stumped me,
1:01:02
Speaker 3: but these were all really fun. Yeah, I guess the
1:01:09
Speaker 3: one thing I'll just end with what I want to
1:01:12
Speaker 3: say is that I think this conversation really is such a,
1:01:17
Speaker 3: I mean, it's such a blessing to me to be
1:01:19
Speaker 3: able to talk with you all about this and that
1:01:23
Speaker 3: this is kind of that sense of what draws us
1:01:26
Speaker 3: together that as we feel the kind of almost mystical
1:01:32
Speaker 3: sense of what brings us to something like Zelda or
1:01:36
Speaker 3: to The Hobbit, and Lewis taught, is it Lewis in
1:01:40
Speaker 3: Surprised by Joy or something? He says, so when friendship
1:01:43
Speaker 3: is born, when you say, what, you too? I thought
1:01:45
Speaker 3: I was the only one, you know? And saying that,
1:01:49
Speaker 3: reading William Morris or something, you know? And I think
1:01:53
Speaker 3: in this sense, it's really... in some sense, fantasy is
1:01:59
Speaker 3: a vehicle by which we discover that friendship, um, really is, uh,
1:02:05
Speaker 3: a wonderful thing and a gift, you know, and the
1:02:08
Speaker 3: kind of friendship that comes out of discovering these beautiful things,
1:02:12
Speaker 3: I think is a real, um, just a real incredible
1:02:15
Speaker 3: blessing that we should have great, grateful, um, appreciation for.
1:02:19
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a good way to wrap. Definitely
1:02:27
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on the show and we'll have to
1:02:30
Speaker 1: have you again sometime, maybe on the other show to
1:02:31
Speaker 1: talk Boethius. I feel like that's something that we need
1:02:33
Speaker 1: to do.
1:02:34
Speaker 3: I'm always up for talking Boethius. All right.
1:02:37
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
1:02:38
Speaker 3: All right.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Josh. And we'll go ahead
1:02:41
Speaker 1: and wrap it there.
1:02:43
Speaker 3: Thank you, gentlemen. Take care. Thank you. Bye.
1:02:50
Speaker 2: All right.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. And thank you, Josh, for facilitating
1:02:53
Speaker 1: the conversation. Thank you, Dr. Cirilla, for joining us and
1:02:56
Speaker 1: talking about the mythopoetic nature of The Legend of Zelda series. Next,
1:03:00
Speaker 1: we'll be doing a three-parter on Mass Effect, covering each
1:03:02
Speaker 1: of those games. And so I look forward to where
1:03:04
Speaker 1: we're going with that. Make sure that if you're not already,
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Speaker 1: that stuff. But that's it for now. See you next
1:04:01
Speaker 1: time for Mass Effect. Until then, Godspeed. I have always,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: at least ever since I can remember... had a kind
1:04:23
Speaker 1: of longing for death. It was when I was happiest
1:04:26
Speaker 1: that I longed most. It was on happy days when
1:04:29
Speaker 1: we were up in the hills, the three of us,
1:04:31
Speaker 1: with the wind and the sunshine, where you couldn't see
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Gloam or the palace. Do you remember? The color and
1:04:37
Speaker 1: the smell and looking across at the gray mountain in
1:04:39
Speaker 1: the distance. And because it was so beautiful, it set
1:04:43
Speaker 1: me longing, always longing. Somewhere else, there must be more
1:04:47
Speaker 1: of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come. But
1:04:51
Speaker 1: I couldn't come. and I didn't know where I was
1:04:54
Speaker 1: to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like
1:04:57
Speaker 1: a bird in a cage when the other birds of
1:04:59
Speaker 1: its kind are flying home. And now I will make
1:05:03
Speaker 1: answer to you, O my judges, and show that he
1:05:06
Speaker 1: who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to
1:05:08
Speaker 1: be of good cheer when he is about to die,
1:05:10
Speaker 1: and that after death he may hope to receive the
1:05:13
Speaker 1: greatest good in the other world. For I deem that
1:05:16
Speaker 1: the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood
1:05:19
Speaker 1: by other men, they do not perceive that he is
1:05:21
Speaker 1: ever pursuing death and dying. And if this is true, why,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: having had the desire of death all his life long,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: should he regret the arrival of that which he has
1:05:30
Speaker 1: always been pursuing and desiring? The longing of Plato and
1:05:34
Speaker 1: the control of the Stoics pervades Lewis's retelling of the
1:05:38
Speaker 1: Cupid and Psyche myth until we have faces. With this
1:05:41
Speaker 1: incredible novel, which he believed to be his best, Lewis
1:05:44
Speaker 1: demonstrates the tensions in ancient thought and, even more significantly,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the limits of rational philosophy, which can only go as
1:05:52
Speaker 1: deep as the foxes can dig. Beyond that, under that,
1:05:56
Speaker 1: and providing the life of that thought, we find the
1:05:59
Speaker 1: dark and holy places that blind our faculties of reason.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: What then shall we do? This is a topic that
1:06:06
Speaker 1: we will explore after first surveying some important philosophical contributions
1:06:10
Speaker 1: in the ancient world that have had some significant bearing
1:06:13
Speaker 1: on Lewis's great novel. To this end, we will begin
1:06:16
Speaker 1: with Plato's Phaedo, which discusses the immortality of the soul
1:06:19
Speaker 1: and what those who love wisdom might expect in the
1:06:22
Speaker 1: life to come. And then we will spend four weeks
1:06:25
Speaker 1: with some of the great Stoics, including Epictetus, Emperor Marcus Aurelius,
1:06:29
Speaker 1: and Seneca. Finally, we will turn our attention to Till
1:06:32
Speaker 1: We Have Faces for the final two weeks with the
1:06:34
Speaker 1: original content, and so this will not be the same
1:06:37
Speaker 1: as what you may have seen in the Fiction and
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Philosophy of C.S. Lewis course. Each week of this eight-week
1:06:41
Speaker 1: study will include readings from primary sources that will be
1:06:44
Speaker 1: provided as PDFs, although these are all texts that belong
1:06:48
Speaker 1: in your personal library. You'll be provided with recommendations for
1:06:51
Speaker 1: secondary readings. You'll have recorded presentations for you to watch
1:06:54
Speaker 1: at your leisure, ongoing Discord chats, and weekly live meetings
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Speaker 1: to discuss the readings. Enroll today by going to patreon.com
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Speaker 1: gain access to all courses, past, present, and future this
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Speaker 1: year by purchasing a Tier 3 annual subscription. I hope
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Speaker 1: to see you there.