Infinite Hope

Who is John Galt?  

I think the more important question here is:  Who gives a shit?

Atlas Shrugged may or may not be a horrible book.  I’ve never read it based on what I assume to be completely objective reviews.  Something about a rich guy being a dick in such a disconnected way that there's no possible way to care about the story.  

Frank Fontaine on the other hand...

As polar opposites go; People like Andrew Ryan have complete faith in humanity.  People like Frank Fontaine have absolutely none (or, at the very least are the reason why some people have none).  Between them there is zero compromise, the result being utter collapse of utopian society.  Un/Fortunately, there will never be such a thing as Utopia because humanity is neither perfect nor is it broken.  It is, at its very core, humanity.  We need boundaries and constraints as much as we need freedom and room for personal growth.  Denying us any of those elements results in not just Atlas shrugging, but everyone collectively complaining to him to stop moving around so damned much.  I think that's why Ann Raynd is so difficult to swallow.  While Bioshock (and by extension the book Rapture) presents us with an easy suspension of disbelief scenario, Atlas Shrugged is uncompromising in its reality, forcing the reader into a unbelievable view of the world.

We are, as a society of imaginative thinkers, moving forward to the point where a man that begs you to bludgeon him to death whilst saying the trigger phrase 'Will you kindly?' is somehow more believable than a railroad magnate pretending at being a social messiah.  And that, my friends, speaks volumes about people.  That is why, despite everything we throw at ourselves, is why we will never fail in the long run.  Video games are slowly saving the world.

Spoiler Alert:

Bioshock Infinite had the most tear jerking ending of any story I've experienced (sans Toy Story 3 or the episode of Futurama with Fry’s dog).  Not because of the way it ended, but because of how it tied everything (I mean everything, all the way from Rapture) together AFTER the story had been told.  What’s more, as a stand alone narrative it works.  With the addition of continuity eclipsing that narrative, it works even better. 

That’s a poor segue into what’s coming next, but please bear with me.

I’ve been trying, since I started taking Trader seriously, to find a way to avoid the cliché of ‘man falls in love with ship.’  Frankly it’s been done in sci-fi, fan-fic, and it’s a tool of writers completely tapped for ideas.  However, for the story to continue, Lily had to be … more than what she was.  She needed to be alive.  Then I played Infinite.

The first thing I worried about when Infinite began was that ‘the girl’ was going to be more Zelda or Peach than anything else.  Let’s face it, 9 times out of 10, when you’re sent to rescue someone of the opposite sex, your archetypal tough guy is going to fall in love with her.  Imagine my surprise when, as Booker Dewitt, I was confronted for the first time with Elizabeth felt none of the expected tension. 

Instead, she’s this innocent, seemingly fragile person that you immediately care a great deal about and DON’T KNOW WHY.  As you play on, you watch her grow, become emotionally attached to her, look forward to her off colour comments, even feel guilty for making bad decisions when she’s around. 

It’s not until the very end of the story that you realize she’s your daughter, at which point you want to gouge your own face off while you bawl in a corner for being such a shit parent.  But it also puts the other games into perspective, making them slightly more depressing.  There’s always a man, always a lighthouse, always a Big Daddy and a Little Sister. 

I was jealous of how well they told this story until it occurred to me that they did it over the span of the ENTIRE game.  I wanted to do the same thing without knowing that’s exactly what I had been doing.  Not actually playing up the story to anything great but it really is a strange moment when you recognize your subconscious actively playing a part in your writing.  I wanted to build a relatable, beloved character, and wound up doing it accidentally.  Hopefully. 

Not sure if Infinite taught me how to spin or just what to look for in what was already there.  It helped though.  Also, science.

 Earlier, I mentioned something about the concept of a Cargo Cult.  The point was lost as the train wreck that is my attention decided to take it in a completely different direction of what I originally intended.  What I MEANT to conclude was that writing (as well as the internet) works in the same fashion, though not always how one would like it to.  

Someone (It was either Kurt Vonnegut or Justina Robson) said that writing often doesn't make you a better writer, it just conditions you to be ready when your muse finally shows up, letting you squeeze as much as you can from it before it runs off again.  I'm inclined to agree.  Hence this blog.  Last night I wrote (read: typed) with my eyes closed, fingers accidentally straying from the home keys and came up with this:

Mtbw ir for swlTWS.  OE Mtbw qw miaaws ir.  No, rhwewa no ion reILA, QWLL, RHWEW’A AOMW Ewllt ols onwa, ao R Lwar qw knoq rhr QW ew in rhw eifhr plXW.  HOQ TOU DIFUEW?

Which, what the hell?  Literally several thousand words of that and it'll take the work of Batman to decode, but as far as bamboo and palm fronds go?  About the same thing.