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56 - Would You Trade a Lived Life for a Dying Wish? To the Moon · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An old man is dying in a house by a lighthouse.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: He has one last wish. He wants to go to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the moon, but he doesn't know why, and neither does
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: anyone else. Two doctors are about to walk backward through
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: his whole life to find out, and what they find
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is a promise that he made as a child and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: then forgot. His wife, however, did not forget. Last week
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: on the movie show, we looked at Eternal Sunshine of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Spotless Mind, and we asked whether love can survive
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: having its memories erased. Tonight, in this short pixel game
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: from 2011, we're being asked something that I think might
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: actually be a little bit harder. If you could give
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a dying man the life that he wished for, would
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you take away the one that he actually lived? I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: am Dr. Andrew Snyder. This is Mythic Mind Games Exploring
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the Psyche, and today we are discussing To the Moon.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: All right. So today we are discussing To the Moon.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: This was an interesting game. On one hand, it's really
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: more of a pixel movie than it is a game.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: There's some little game mechanics here and there, but there's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: kind of superfluous to the main point, which is the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: story that's being told. But I guess, Michael, I think
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: this was your pick. And so why don't you take
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the first stab at this? What do you want to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: say about this game?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I played it shortly after it came out, probably
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: back in 2011. And that was an era where there
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: were a whole lot less indie games coming out per year.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And weird little gems could hit critical mass. This game
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: was made in RPG Maker, which doesn't really have a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: reputation for making, you know, knockout games. But this one
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: kind of hit critical mass on, you know, in gaming conversations.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: And so I picked it up and played through it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: And It's really just a fascinating game. There's a very
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: strong science fiction idea that asks some very interesting questions
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: about regret and grief and dying and leaves you feeling
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: certain things that then when you get to the end
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: and you stop and you think back, you wonder what
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: you really should be feeling about it. So it's really
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a fascinating little game. I've always loved it. Plus, I
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: have always loved any time a game... includes the music
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: as an actual part of the game. What do you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: call that?
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Is it diegetic?
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Is that the term I'm looking for here? It's like
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: the cantina music in Star Wars is actually there within
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the scene. Well, the main theme of the game is
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: actually a piece of sheet music that you see in
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the game that is part of the plot. I've always
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: loved when people do things like that. So I'm a
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: sucker for that sort of thing.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Sam, what do you want to say about this game?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, I... shared Michael's experience with this. It's a wonderful
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: story and a very fun game. And then you get
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: to the end and you ask yourself what even happened
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: and how you should be feeling. I was very captivated
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: by the idea that how it seemed like no matter
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: what the main character, this man dying, Johnny, how it
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: seemed like he was going to die believing a lie,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: regardless of whatever actions these scientists ended up taking. Because
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: they start having some questions, like if they even should
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: do what they're contractually obliged to do. And ultimately, they
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: kind of do with some nuance. But even before they
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: had this whole operation of artificially giving him the experience
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: of his last wish, this... incident in his childhood rendered
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: certain memories including the memory of the promise he made
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: to his future wife that is the central conflict for
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: this whole thing inaccessible to him and so no matter
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: what he isn't really an authentic person and kind of
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: like loses parts of his identity and adopts some of
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: his brother that died when he was little and i
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: is that whole nuance and everything i found so fascinating.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah of course there are all these questions about who
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: would he have been given certain situations which um kind
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of raises the issue of what is the relationship between
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you and your environment that the life that you are
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: given how much of that is definitive versus like is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: there even a you that exists apart from the particular
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: things that were presented to you you know well maybe
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: we'll table that present it david tell us something about
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: this game.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah uh samuel that I hadn't really thought about that fact,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: that his memories that he has are not really accurate either.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: So then that, yeah, that brings more questions into play.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: So that's a pretty clever plot point. Andrew, at the beginning,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: you mentioned Eternal Sunshine, and I think the similarities are unavoidable.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: In fact, I wonder if this game would exist as
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: it does if that movie had not existed first, because
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: there are some very similar plot devices going on. My
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: temptation is to overanalyze the premise of the game. I
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: think like what's the value in having your memories rewritten
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: just before you die? You know, if you if it's
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: from a materialistic standpoint, whether your last moments are false
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: memories or a horrible nightmare, you know, oblivion is coming.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: It doesn't really matter. And if Christianity is true, then
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: only what is real matters in the end. But I
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: think that's missing the point of what the game is
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: trying to discuss. I think it's a story about partly
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: the events in our lives that make us who we
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: are and how they steer our path, often in ways
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: that we aren't aware of. And that the bad things
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: that happen are often the most foundational things that steer
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: us towards where we go for good.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Now, I would say that that is basically the message
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of Eternal Sunshine, that the pain is worth where it
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: brings you because it can be subsumed into something greater
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: than the pain. Now, it seems like the opposite message
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: is at play in this game, right? Where now we're
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: headed toward just kind of this radical... in which we
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: are going to defy facticity in order to generate the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: world that we wish was, which, again, seems to me
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to be the opposite kind of message from the movie.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Or maybe I'm misunderstanding it. I don't know. I mean,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I went through it pretty quickly.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I think there's a very strong case to be made
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: that the game is not necessarily always endorsing the actions
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: of the protagonists, or at least the intended thematic narrative
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: of the game itself. There's definitely some hints that the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Sigmund Corporation is really not great, not all that ethical.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: There's multiple views behind the line that Neil and Eve,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: is it Eve or Eva? I can't remember. The two
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: protagonists are also, it's a job to them, right? They
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: don't question what they're doing. And there may also be
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the sense, too, that this is somewhat of an extraordinary
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: case that touches far more on someone's deepest self than
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: what they're often doing. So they may be used to doing, well,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I wish I'd gotten to visit Cabo San Lucas, I
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: don't know, something like that, which is a far different
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: kind of morphine drip at the end of life than
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: what comes up in To the Moon, which is, of course,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: far more foundational. There's a couple of sequels, and it
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: is definitely implied in those that there's serious ethics things.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: The later games do seriously call into question the ethics
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: of what the company and these doctors are doing. So
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: from that standpoint, it is a game a little bit
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: where the narrator is unreliable, in a sense, and that
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: we are these protagonists that are involved in something which
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: is absolutely ethically dubious at the very best, right? I mean,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: absolute best case scenario, it's like, it's a good idea.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that, right?
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: This Johnny, I mean, he called them, right? He invited
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: them to do this thing. And so what would you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: say is ethically dubious about this? I mean, it would
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: certainly be ethically dubious if they're just jumping into random
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: dying people's memories. But I mean, if they're invited into this,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is this fundamentally different from something like hospice care, but
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: with more of a I don't know, psychological touch to it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, that gets into all sorts of questions about
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: bioethics and things like that. It's like, I mean, you
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: can pay someone for gender transition surgery. You know, I mean,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: is that ethical? Right. I mean, you're consenting and you're
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: signing the paperwork and signing up to it. Is that
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: good and ethical? Well, no, not necessarily, obviously. So, you know,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the I agreed to this does not necessarily make it okay.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: But again, it almost depends on what's being asked for, right?
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: If he'd asked for a last vacation, then that's something
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: very different than what happens in this game. So very, yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: very sketchy. And for the context, for if someone that's
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: listening to this hasn't heard it, basically that you pay
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: this company to come in and give you a memory
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: that you didn't have, something that you regret that you
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: wish you had been able to do or accomplish or whatever.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: If you want to be a world-class pianist, Well, they
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: come in when you're on your deathbed. They do not
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: come in sooner. And so it is to give you
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: this memory as a dying memory so that it's the
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: last thing, so that it does not change or affect
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: your life going forward. We're not rewriting people's lives. So
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: they have at least that little bit of plausible deniability there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: We're not messing up people as they go about their
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: daily life. We're only messing up grandpa on his deathbed
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: potentially but yeah it's a great sci-fi setup it's a
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: good sci-fi setup because there's there's been memory changing sci-fi
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: for decades upon decades right and every different kind of
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: property from inception to this takes their slightly different approach
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: to how do we deal with altering like the very
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: essence of what someone is and how they perceive themselves.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And so this is a very interesting setup of somebody
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that's taken that and is monetizing it in a rather
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: fascinating way that looks very benevolent on the surface, you know.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Fulfill your dreams. Have the world's best IV drip. That
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: was the, when the game was first coming out, that
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: was the phrase that everybody was using when talking about
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: it was that Sigmund Corporation provides the world's best IV drip,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: you know, for dying.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Well, I think what Andrew is saying is that if
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: something makes someone happy in the moment, just let them
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: do it. Leave them alone. Isn't that right, Andrew?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Not quite. But this is why I think categories matter,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: because this is why I intentionally related this process to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: something like hospice care, where you have someone who is
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: dying wanting some degree of comfort on the way out.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And so that's why I think this is categorically different
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: than something like, you know, gender transition.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So the matter at hand isn't just consent. It's what
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is ethical regarding a desire for comfort.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And so. Is there a fundamental difference between a psychological
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: rewrite that makes you more comfortable with your life as
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you die and the physical comfort that can come through
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the morphine dripper or whatever? Is that a categorical difference?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: If we could sort of nurse the psychology in addition
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to the body?
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: From a Christian perspective, which I know this game is
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: not taking... But I mean, imagine this scenario, like you
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: die with false memories, and then I would assume immediately,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: you know that they're not. They're false, right? Like you've
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: momentarily altered the way you remember your part in the
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: story that God is telling. So I don't know. The
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: ethical question to me is, Staying away from the transgender
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: aspect would be more of like a Jack Kevorkian assisted
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: suicide sort of a thing. You know, like if a
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: person is dying, do they get to choose how they
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: experience that if such a thing existed?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: It doesn't it doesn't seem right to me. I mean,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: I suppose to a certain degree, you could be doing
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: that just by giving someone a lot of morphine right
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: before they die, you know, altering their mental state in
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: some way.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I'll say that it probably, it might be okay, but
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: it might strongly depend upon what you're asking for as well.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know that, like I said, having that memory of, well,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I got to play in the NBA is really necessarily
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: that damning of a memory to your soul to go
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: out on, as opposed to, I wish I had a
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: different wife. I mean, there are so many ways that
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: it can immediately jump off the rails, but it's also
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: possible that there are some pretty innocuous things you could
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: write up to have them change.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, of course, from a Christian perspective, On one hand,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: mercy is obviously a good thing. Compassion is a good thing.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: But also, we want to be careful that our primary
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: drive in how we help someone who's dying isn't to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: necessarily make dying easier. I know as somebody who's not,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, currently actively dying, it's easy
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: for me to say that. But the reality is, it's
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: dangerous to take things lightly and make comfort the number
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one goal. when our number one comfort is the eternal
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: hope of the resurrection, not that I've lived this life
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that I want to have lived. This brings us back
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: to the Ivan Ilyich discussion that we had previously, where
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: he starts asking the question of, what do I want?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: What do I even want to want? And he starts
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to realize on his deathbed that the things that he
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: thought he wanted aren't actually what he wanted. And eventually,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that line of thinking spirals down to him recognizing that, oh,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I'm actually guilty. Not only did I not do all
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the things I wanted to do, I actively did the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: wrong things. And that was necessary in order for his
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: healing as he approached death, the healing of his soul.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And so I think it's a dangerous position where we're
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: going to elevate our fantastical whimsies and fantasies above the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: reality of where we stand in our mortality. Once again,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I know this game isn't doing any of that because
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it's operating under... if not materialist, then at least not
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: explicitly religious framework, which leads us back to David's question
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of if we're operating under a materialist framework, then I mean,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I guess why not given the fantasy, but also in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the end, it doesn't really matter. So I don't know.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: That's not a good lead up to conversation. It's more
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: just some monologuing.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there is an interesting wrinkle in because it's
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: kind of implied that they're essentially time traveling. If they
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: were actually time traveling, then they would just be actually
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: trying to convince him. They can't just make him go
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: to the moon. They have to go back in his
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: memories and spur him in a way where he actually
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: steers his life and puts in the effort to actually
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: make it to where he himself did what needed to
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: be done to get himself to the moon. And so
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: that's kind of an interesting point about What could we
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: accomplish if we truly applied ourselves towards the things that
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: we want? So that when we are on our deathbed,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: we wouldn't want to pay some company to have helped
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: us live the life that we wish we had lived.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. Live as if you are on
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: your way to the moon.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: If indeed the moon is your goal.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Right. Which, given the metaphorical nature of what the moon
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: represents in this particular story, it works.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: And there are clever story beats in here. I mean,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: the old man's wife, she spent her life trying to
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: gently make him remember the day that they met. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: then she died believing that he never did. But then
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: he died believing he had never forgotten. So those were
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: that's an interesting wrinkle, I thought.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just going to say the whole story
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: is built upon tragedy. I mean, from all of these
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: different layers and a huge part of the game is
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: unveiling all the different layers of the tragedy in nonlinear
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: order because they're working their way backwards from his most
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: recent memories. They start with the memories of seeing their
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: marriage in this struggling state you know, in this late,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: these later years, and we work back into happier times
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: and learn, you know, that she has, I forget what
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: it is, but it's a neurodivergent medical diagnosis that is
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: why she is unable to communicate these things to him.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: And so in the early stages, you, you, you really
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: just kind of left that, oh, this is kind of tragic.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: She had these particular issues that, you know, she was
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: unable to cope with. He was unable to communicate with her. Like, that's,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: that's sad.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: But then the game begins to add these layers upon
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: layers of, well, they met when they were younger. He'd
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: had this, you know, this brother that had been backed over,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: you know, in the driveway by their mom. You know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: they'd given him medication and those medications had wiped out
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: some memories. So he didn't remember. And so she's unable.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So there's all these layers of this tragedy that's built
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: upon it. And the game builds up to that. This
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: ending point, which as David was saying, was this reconciliation
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: per se. And there is a catharsis that it's very
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: easy to feel in the moment because it's a well-staged
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: build-up to this, what these doctors have been trying tirelessly
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: through the night, trying to get to before this man
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: passes away in his sleep. And there's these stirring strings
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and they're on the rocket together. and they reach over
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and they hold hands as the EKG is flatlining, and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: it's quiet, and it's just the EKG flatline, and the
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: strings come back in with the same pitch as the EKG,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: and the music continues with the death tone as part
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: of the music. It's a very stirringly orchestrated moment that
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: then goes immediately to the credits. But the moment you
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: stop to think about it, it is built upon this
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: house of cards, and it's one last layer to this
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: tragedy is that the reconciliation doesn't happen. Actually, there's no
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: reconciliation for River. She spent her whole life reaching out
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: to her husband, you know, and in a way unable
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: to reach him because there were things that she was
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: unable to do herself that, you know, she never got
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the treatment or learned how to cope well enough to
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: get through these things. And so she passes away, you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: not having reached him. But there's this one sense that
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe there is the one little silver lining of the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: fact that all of her efforts to reach him in
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: some sense do beyond her death. And that the two
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: doctors carry on what they learn from her and her
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: life to kind of, at the very least in the end,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: he at least does get to know that, well, she
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: really did love him despite you know not being able
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to so there is there is some layer of of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: actual knowledge that's passed on you know but even if
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: it's just a sense of well this is the life
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: we could have lived you know this is the relationship
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: we should have had if we'd been able to fully
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: work through all of the issues that both of them
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: had so yeah the whole whole game is layered in
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: tragedy and Like I said, there's a lot to think
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: about afterward. And it's hard to nail down very precise
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: thoughts about what you want to say, that this is
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: exactly what I want to say about it, or this
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: is exactly how you're supposed to feel about it. Because
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: the symbolism works on an emotional level, but when you
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: figure out how it functions in the sci-fi world, you
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: realize that some of the symbolism is hollow. there is
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: no to the moon, there is no relationship. And I
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: think that is an integral part of the tragedy of
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: the game that you really just can't get around.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very much a romantic tragedy in that so
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: much investment is put into this fantasy of him reaching
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the moon that it feels real until you remember that
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it isn't. And so you get so invested and it
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: feels like there's some kind of consolation there, but it's just... not.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It's hollow. And this is really the best that the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: romantic can hope for. And as I've said elsewhere, I
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: think that there are certain elements of romanticism that I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: absolutely appreciate and I think have a strong place within
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the Christian framework. But romanticism as such, it's all fantasy
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: with no reality, nothing to stand on. So all they
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: have is this fantasy, which as Kierkegaard says, as soon
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: as the romantic gives himself over to pure possibility. They've
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: lost all reality and now they're just floating in the void.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And so that their hope is revealed to be an illusion.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's why this game leaves you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: with that feeling of, I don't really know what to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: think about it because there's something real to desire which
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is partly why I say that there's reality to certain
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: kinds of fiction. Obviously, you're giving him a kind of fiction,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and there's a reality to fiction, but I only say
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that because the reality of fiction is tied to the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: reality of the primary world that actually exists. Pure fantasy
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: as simply that which we imagine, that isn't real in itself,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it's real as a reflection of a more real reality. Now,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I will say that I do appreciate a lot of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: just the lunar feel of the game, Obviously, the whole
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: idea is to go to the moon. you know, that,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that ties to the classical picture, this classical image of
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the moon and that, you know, things are, you have
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: all these moving pieces, nothing's really stable. Things are shifting around.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: His wife's name is river. So we get the, the water,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you know, connection to the moon. And so the whole,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you know, dreaming and memory and like the, in the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: silver chair of, you know, remember the signs, which are
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: going to point you back to this more fundamental reality.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And so I do appreciate just that general lunar mood
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to this.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: And, um, The rabbit, even in Asian cultures, they don't
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: see a man in the moon. They see a rabbit
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: in the moon. And in Japanese, there's a Japanese folk
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: tale about a rabbit who sees a starving beggar and
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: he wanted to help him. And humans don't eat grass.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: And then he remembered that they like meat. And so
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: the rabbit builds a fire and then happily throws himself
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: in the fire. And then, of course, the beggar turns
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: out to be a god and the rabbit doesn't get
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: burned in the fire. And he says, because of your selflessness,
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: I'm going to make the image of you on the moon.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: So everyone will be reminded of your selflessness. And so
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: I think that. And an origami is Japanese as well.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: So I don't think any of that is accidental. Speaking
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: of going to the moon, there's one glaring issue to me.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And that is that a space shuttle cannot go to
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: the moon. So is that ignorance on the part of
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: the developers or just irrelevant to the point? Or is
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: it in some way intentional? Because after all, he doesn't
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: make it to the moon before he passes away anyway.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: And it is not real. What do you all think
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: about that?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: So I think, one, it doesn't matter, but I think
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: it intentionally doesn't matter because I think that the two doctors,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: when they're in the NASA facilities, the fake NASA facility
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: memories that never happened, I think one of them, isn't
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: there a line somewhere about them questioning if this is
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: what it's really like? And the other answer is that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: basically this is what Johnny thinks it's like, and so
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: that's what the memory is being constructed as.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: And so so you can say in that sense, it
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: really doesn't matter because, well, that Johnny doesn't necessarily know
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: because he's not an astronaut. So he was a non
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: astronaut dreaming that he was an astronaut in his final seconds.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: That's true. And when I was a child and I
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: learned that the space shuttle was not. launching and then
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: landing on the moon and then taking off and coming
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: back to Earth. It was very much a moment of
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: disillusion for me because I thought, why? Why would you
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: go to space if you're not going to go to
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the moon? You know, like I thought every time a
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: rocket took off, somebody was going to the moon. And
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: then I remember telling my son, no one has been
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: on the moon in my lifetime. So I do hope
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: that happens again.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to clip that for the trailer for this.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: David saying no one has ever been to the moon.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But you do bring up an interesting point. You know
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: what your interesting point is? And it goes back to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: your previous one, is that in the game, he doesn't
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: go to the moon.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Not even in the rewritten memories in the dream state,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: per se, does he actually get to the moon, right?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: And so that could be a nod to the fact
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: that there isn't that reconciliation. They don't get to the moon.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: but there is just the acknowledgement where she reaches out
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the hand, where he recognizes that she has been reaching
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: out his hand their entire relationship, and they've been unable
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: to meet in the middle. So there could be a
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: little bit of an acknowledgement there, Andrew, of the, well,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: we don't actually get there. You know, there's the first
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: step of the acknowledgement, perhaps. Just a thought, just a thought.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: The achievement that Steam gives, is wish granted. And he
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: doesn't actually land on the moon and moonwalk or whatever.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: The wish, as insubstantial as that ends up being, is
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: the reconciliation with River. Because the whole point with the
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: moon is that that was where they promised to meet
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: if they couldn't find each other. And yet that moment
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: of catharsis is... thrown into question when he like reaches
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: out and they hold hands or he holds hands with
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: river but it's not the real river so it's the
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: wish is granted and it isn't exactly the wish they
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: had on on track because they've gained this understanding of
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: johnny and what he actually desires for his wish but
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: even the granting of that doesn't give him what he
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: in a sense should have Right.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: At best, he reconciled with some part of himself rather
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: than with her, which makes this very much an isolated,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: introspective story than the love story that you want it
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to be based on how it's presented.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: And it's similar to Eternal Sunshine. He's The Clementine that
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Joel in Eternal Sunshine is trying to hold on to
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: is just his memories of her and not the actual person. So, yeah,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: but that is a good point, because the same way
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: that he doesn't understand how NASA works, he didn't really
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: know how River would be if she had been, you know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: family moved away or something when she was young and
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: they met again as adults. That's all just conjecture.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Which brings me back to saying this is essentially hospice care.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: It's comforting a dying man, but I don't know how
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: much more else, what more it can be than that.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Well, and like I said, the limits of the sci-fi
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: and the settings say it basically is hospice care. It's
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: given to hospice patients who are on their deathbed.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: You know, I have a VR Apollo simulation. They could
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: have just stuck a PlayStation VR on his head, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: that would have been a lot easier.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Not rewritten his memories in the process.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure it won't be too long until we
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: can just neural link some memories in and make it happen.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Like I said in our Eternal Sunshine conversation, a lot
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of these sci-fi elements are not quite so sci-fi anymore
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: when you just look at where things are headed.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: On that disappointing note, do you have anything else to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: say about this game?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Like I said, I really like it. It's a fascinating game.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I think it does what it sets out to do.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: It makes you feel things, and then while the credits
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: are rolling, you start asking why you felt what you
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: felt and if they were warranted. There's a couple of sequels.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I've only played one of them, Finding Paradise. It has
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: a very different tone. It's another patient, another life you see,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: but it's a very different set of circumstances. It's not
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: quite set up so much on this sort of tragedy scene.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And I enjoyed it.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: It was good. You know, it's just a very different game.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I never got around to the third one. It's been
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: in my steam library for years. Impostor Factory, I think,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: is the third one.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: Isn't there another one that had to do with like
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: paper planes or bird story?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a couple of little like free like mini-sodes,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the developer calls them. You can basically just get them
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: for free. They're like 30 minutes long, you know, just
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: a little another little story that can be played through.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: I never realized that they were interconnected. I thought they
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: were just other games by the same studio.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: That's the two mini sodes are directly connected. They take
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: place between to the moon and finding paradise. And one,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: one of them for sure. I think it was like
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: a Christmas episode even, but it's like in the office.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Have you played it, Sam?
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: I saw them on Steam. I didn't actually play them.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: They're not very long, but I think they were used
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: more for building the sci-fi of the world. I think
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: there were protests taking place at the company because of
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: what they do and things like that. So there is
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: definite recognition within the continued world building that this is
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: not something you should be doing lightly. So it's certainly recognized.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: by the game world going forward. But it's been many years,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: most of a decade since I, if not more than
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: a decade since I played those. So I can't, I
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: can't remember anymore. They, they, they chase entirely different rabbits,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: which I think is the right call because, you know,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: too often you get some sort of thing that people
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: really liked and was emotional. And then a sequel, you're like,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I just want more of the same thing. And it
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: doesn't need to be that, you know, it needs to
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: take what's, what other interesting premise comes from this science
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: fiction question, which is, you know, one of the core
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: strengths of science fiction. You know, it's not necessarily to
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: predict the future, but it's to ask those questions about things.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So you're saying we should not create the torment nexus.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: We should not create the torment nexus.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: So the other games don't chase origami moon rabbits.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: They do not chase origami moon rabbits. OK, they do not.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: At least, like I said, I only played the full
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: one full sequel. I never played the third one. I
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: never played Impostor Factory.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: So there's a bit of a you know, after the
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: credits in this, there's a little flash as though someone
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: else is dying. Like it's inception. Like we were inside
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: of a memory inside of someone else's memory or something.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: You talking about when Neil went to the car? I think,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: so I think Neil is addicted to painkillers, I think
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: is the implication. And I think he was taking one
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: and it's that flash is when he's taken one. Oh,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: there's some hints that he's, addicted to something okay they
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: did yeah that did come up yeah and i i
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: think that's referenced again at the very end as a
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: he like turns around and and does something to his
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: mouth i think that's the implication there is that like
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: i said we have a pair of of well these
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: two who these two protagonists aren't jesus they have their
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: issues right and and these and so they're like i
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: said i don't know where they go with neil in
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: the later series but there's some Some evidence that he's
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: unwell in some ways as well.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: They're a little bit anime tropey as well.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I think when we first talked about this,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I think that was one thing I mentioned, that one
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: of the biggest downsides is it comes with a very
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: specific set of dated internet humor. The game came out
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: in like, was it 11? But really the humor was
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: more like 2008 or 2009 humor. You know, it was
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: a little dated even then because it was one guy
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: making a game, so it took him a few years.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: So there's a very, very dated internet forum. You're not
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: even really social media era of internet humor involved, which
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: is kind of a little quaint now. You're like, oh, okay,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that's whatever. But I think I mentioned that when I
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: first brought it up.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I did appreciate toward the beginning the faux battle that
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you have with the squirrel. Make it look like a
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: standard RPG.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really thought that I was going to be
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: fighting squirrels or something. It was a good, good trick.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And one other little thing that I liked, just as
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: I mentioned, different visual mediums handle the abstraction of memory
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: in different ways. And one of the things that I
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: liked is that basically the things that Johnny didn't remember
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: that he didn't see or pay attention to are indistinct
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: and they blur out and they stop existing and the
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: people are just blurs. The people that weren't important to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: that memory or whose identity he didn't know, they're just
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: a blob. They're there. They're part of the reconstruction that
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the doctors are in, but Johnny doesn't know who they are,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: so how should they? So I thought that was an
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: interesting way to do that, that maybe works in a
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: video game that wouldn't work quite the same way in
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: a movie. There's a lot I like about the game.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I like a lot of the conceits of going into
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the memories. I like the going backwards. David was correct
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: in that it bears a lot of similarities to time
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: travel stories, actually. It bears probably some in common with
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Citizen Kane, I would say, even, where it's the idea
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: of you're looking through a life to try and understand
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: it to, to find what, what, what are those key
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: moments and those key memories and those key foundations that
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: make a person, which obviously, you know, Rosebud and Citizen
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Kane is one of the most famous moments in cinema
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: history that, you know, you have this man that, well,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: he didn't really have a life with foundations. And so
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: the foundation was his childhood sled, you know, but, but I, I,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I think that to the moon probably has some, has
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: some lineage lineage with Citizen Kane and, and, and other,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: movies like that. But I'm also a sucker for any
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: story that tells an entire life through decades, and you
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: see people at all these different steps. Those can be
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: very thoughtfully done stories, because they're usually trying to at
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: least think about bigger ideas. What makes a life? What
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: makes a person? How do we end up who we become?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and on that vein, I think it's very fitting
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: for what we're doing in this season. And the criticisms
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that I bring to this conversation are almost entirely toward
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: romanticism as such, rather than this game as a romantic story.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And I think there's two different things. And so as
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: an art form, as a romantic story, as a romantic tragedy,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I really do appreciate what this game is doing. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: it leads to some interesting and worthwhile questions about What
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: is the relationship between fantasy and reality? What is the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: most that we can hope for in a broken life?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: And as Christians, of course, we have some answers to
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: those questions, but that doesn't necessarily mean that our answers
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: always perfectly back onto our experience of life as such.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And so I think that sometimes we need these lunar
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: stories with these moving pieces to to help us to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: get in touch with our own kind of existential experience
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of life. And so, yeah, I think that the romanticism
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: has some dangerous places they can go, but I think
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that the story that this game is telling is well told,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and I think that it does exactly what it set
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: out to accomplish. And I don't know that I could
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: ask for much more than that. This is a good pick.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed the game. Next time we are looking at Brothers,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: A Tale of Two Sons, which I know absolutely nothing about.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: So I look forward to getting into it and having
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: some thoughts at that time. So appreciate you guys showing
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: up for this and hope to see you next time.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mythic Mind Games. You can
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: join us for the next conversation by becoming a member
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: over at mythicmindfellowship.com. I hope to see you there.