I recommend a more measured infixation. Something less likely to cause offense among certain quarters. For example: Defkillallearthhumansinitely. See how much better that sounds?
i do feel like there's a grain of *something* in there, like, Toby is definitely good at anticipating fan responses to characters and scenes, so i'd be very surprised if he hadn't anticipated that the characters he'd created just so happened to be the kinds that appeal strongly to a geek/fandom audience
but i'm irritated by how the argument wilfully ignores the game's actual themes in order to accuse stuff that makes perfect sense in the context of the game's story of being morally nonsense
I'm generally not super interested in engaging with Undertale Discourse mainly because it is generally only tenuously related to what I was interested in/invested in playing the game
i'm a little scared that "Undertale Discourse" may ultimately result in me liking Undertale less, or worse, undergoing a complete 180 on it, but i feel like this is cowardice
i dunno, i like to analyze stuff i enjoyed, try to figure how it works
i don't think Undertale outright discourages this; there's things you're "not meant to know" but if you didn't engage in some forbidden exploration, you'd never leave the long corridor with the pillar
i'm a little scared that "Undertale Discourse" may ultimately result in me liking Undertale less, or worse, undergoing a complete 180 on it, but i feel like this is cowardice
it has certainly done that for me so your fears are not without merit
though I suspect for different reasons than you mean
If you want. If it's the post i think it is you might find me slow to respond, because i'm still processing it.
@Jane i mean that i see people pointing out little imperfections in it, and i worry there's a point where, in my head, they may eclipse everything that made the game so wonderful for me in the first place :/
If you want. If it's the post i think it is you might find me slow to respond, because i'm still processing it.
@Jane i mean that i see people pointing out little imperfections in it, and i worry there's a point where, in my head, they may eclipse everything that made the game so wonderful for me in the first place :/
Nitpicking is nitpicking, and fundamentally less valuable than posts on themes or intertextuality or so on. Recognize and gloss over them?
Well, yes, nitpicks are just nitpicks and are harmless, but some things feel like they shouldn't be glossed over, and when they do feel that way, that's the point when i can't ever go back to liking something the way i liked it before.
i guess if i do wind up feeling like Undertale "might be bad", i'll probably take some time away from the fandom and then probably play it again and see how i feel about it then
since i finished the game i've been pretty obsessed, but the post-which-must-not-be-discussed has thrown me for a loop a bit and i'm not sure how to deal at the moment
I'm sick of the conversation (sorry, "discourse", I forgot that was the word of the month) about the moral "airtightness" of Undertale. Cuz I just....don't care about that? Or for that matter, that quality in the vast majority of things? Because I genuinely don't think Undertale matters in that way. I don't think art in general matters in that way.
Posts like that bother me because they're so perpindicular to what I actually cared about in the game and furthermore it just strikes me as fucking dumb?
What does this even mean?
Undertale as it exists now, is like the fanon version of a game that never existed.
Like what does it really mean. I understand what they were going for, but I don't think they got there. I don't think they even got close.
Nobody--or at least nobody important--has ever sat down and thought as the first thing that popped into their head, "I want to make a moral work of art". People don't think that way, despite what GamerGate might try to insist.
People make art because they want to create a compelling story or world or throw some combination of ideas together in a way that will ring as interesting, and this fucker is sitting here talking about how Undertale "doesn't make moral sense". It's not a philosophical system, it's a video game.
I want to grab this person by the shoulders and just go "video games do not matter". Because they don't. They're art, what happens to Frisk in Undertale has no more impact on the real world on a meaningful scale than what happens to The Master Chief in Halo, what happens to 2 Chainz's stove in that one song, or what made the guy in that one painting scream. It just does not fucking matter.
All, ultimately, art can hope for, is to connect the artist and the person interacting with the art on a sort of person to person level, if Undertale did that in the way it intended to, then it "worked", as much as any piece of art can.
I spoke of being bothered by fanon boiling down characters to caricatures in this specific case (I mind it less at other times. Often I actually find the fanon versions more interesting), but god I would gladly spend an entire day reading Sans comics if it meant I never had to hear about Undertale's "morals" again. I regret writing about it myself in that review that no one read, I regret reading about it before playing the game, and I regret continuing to read about it afterward.
I hate hate hate this kind of "meta" discussion, because it's tedious and uninteresting, and because it tries to put forth the idea that the video games you play somehow says something meaningful about you as a person, which is fucking nonsense.
the "moral" in Undertale meant something rather personal to me, and while i don't feel it has anything major to say about real life stuff, it still helped me (most of the way) out of a dark mental place i'd fallen into so like, it's something that matters to me, kinda a little kinda a lot??
idk, i know how dumb it is to get worked up over a video game but like, i'm not talking about it to spite you
the "moral" in Undertale meant something rather personal to me, and while i don't feel it has anything major to say about real life stuff, it still helped me (most of the way) out of a dark mental place i'd fallen into so like, it's something that matters to me, kinda a little kinda a lot??
idk, i know how dumb it is to get worked up over a video game but like, i'm not talking about it to spite you
that isn't what i meant, that would fall under this
All, ultimately, art can hope for, is to connect the artist and the person interacting with the art on a sort of person to person level, if Undertale did that in the way it intended to, then it "worked", as much as any piece of art can.
What I mean is the conversation about the collective experiences of everyone who played the game and how it reflects on them either as people or simply as consumers. That conversation is horrifically tedious.
the "if you did a No Mercy run never talk to me" people are one small part of this camp.
All I am really getting at is that I don't think media can make you a worse person, which a lot of the conversation about Undertale and similar games seems to be predicated on, in various ways.
I dunno what you would like people to discuss about Undertale, if you dislike people talking about its morals and you dislike the superficial fan fun readings.
I would certainly like more people to discuss how Undertale blends traditional and non-traditional notions of video games to create a unique experience.
I dunno what you would like people to discuss about Undertale, if you dislike people talking about its morals and you dislike the superficial fan fun readings.
I hope it's not bad to be confused by that.
The game has more dimensions than either as a yardstick for people to use to judge other people or as a machine for bad fanfiction.
Like, just off the top of my head: how you felt about the whole thing, neat game (enemy, overworld, etc.) design bits, favorite bossfights.
I also already said that for all the caricaturizing can annoy me I much prefer it to what I've been talking about in the past few posts.
I don't really think the game's that unique either but I'd at least be willing to entertain that notion if someone could present some idea of why they thought that.
i sort of feel like there is a certain sort of uniqueness in the way the setting is presented and interacted with but that might just be that i haven't really played much rpgs
Comments
Otherwise, I agree with Crystal.
i love the first 3 minutes of this
kinda meh on everything after that
This is A Controversy
:slowpoke:
but i'm irritated by how the argument wilfully ignores the game's actual themes in order to accuse stuff that makes perfect sense in the context of the game's story of being morally nonsense
i dunno, i like to analyze stuff i enjoyed, try to figure how it works
i don't think Undertale outright discourages this; there's things you're "not meant to know" but if you didn't engage in some forbidden exploration, you'd never leave the long corridor with the pillar
Somebody please tell me if I am.
i'd say ask Sredni but i think he's avoiding this thread due to spoilers
Is it okay if I PM you about it?
@Jane i mean that i see people pointing out little imperfections in it, and i worry there's a point where, in my head, they may eclipse everything that made the game so wonderful for me in the first place :/
sucks.
since i finished the game i've been pretty obsessed, but the post-which-must-not-be-discussed has thrown me for a loop a bit and i'm not sure how to deal at the moment
the "moral" in Undertale meant something rather personal to me, and while i don't feel it has anything major to say about real life stuff, it still helped me (most of the way) out of a dark mental place i'd fallen into so like, it's something that matters to me, kinda a little kinda a lot??
idk, i know how dumb it is to get worked up over a video game but like, i'm not talking about it to spite you
i didn't think you *were* saying that, but perhaps i misunderstood you, nevertheless
i certainly think "if you did a No Mercy run never talk to me" is silly, fwiw
I hope it's not bad to be confused by that.
I would certainly like more people to discuss how Undertale blends traditional and non-traditional notions of video games to create a unique experience.
it's just that, when you experience a work of art, what you get out of it is partially predicated on what you brought in
so arguments predicated upon a universal flaw of moral intent kinda fall flat