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1

Characters, Plot, and Themes / Re: The Entity as a metaphore of human experience.

« on: November 27, 2008, 08:44:51 am »

Oh, and sorry for the spelling, I'm not a native speaker, hope you understood at least most of the message. Cheers.

2

Characters, Plot, and Themes / The Entity as a metaphore of human experience.

« on: November 27, 2008, 08:40:56 am »

In the Chrono Trigger's essay about the game's storyline being based on cristianity, the Entity was found to be God or something... but at the end, there was an added commentary that said: maybe the entity is the player. I thought it to be a cool idea. But then I thought of how the world created by kato and the others (the dream) wasn't really my dream (obviously), I mean, I didn't imagine nor pixeled it's scenarios, nor did I write the script, etc. I kinda forgot about all this until something hapenned in my life and I had to -again - start searching for info about the chrono series (being both my favorite narrative experiences, I'm not even saying videogames). One of the things that draw my attention was the fact that the Entity was being interpreted as the Planet (which, in the game, was a sort of imaginary Planet Earth). I actually didn't like this explanation. Not only because it was a kind of incoherent one (there's gaps like why did the dragons die, or that humans, being the menace that we are for the planet, are treated very nicely by this entity). I'm not saying that the writers of the game didn't attempt to promote an ecological message through the game; I actually think they were trying to do that, among many things that games for kids usually tend to do (not a bad thing, just that it's curious how the pattern repeats everytime). Of course, I'm among the people that believe that these ninety's games like CT, CC, FFVII were so fantastic because they were very complex in terms of plot and meaning (apart from the visuals and the gameplay). So, besides this theory of the Entity being the core of a tree-hugging discourse, I'd like to propose a second idea, based on the fact that the word "planet" is pretty ambiguous. Here's my theory: when the characters of the game reffer to the Entity as the Planet's dream, they are actually saying something about the world that's being created, that's happening when you play uin the environment the japanese designers created for you to participate in it. A world - in the whole sense of the concept - that could not exist without neither the creator or the experiencers. Maybe this Entity's dream is just the manifestation of the game-playing dialogue between the player and the makers through the experience of the game. I mean... Masato Kato (possibly the only one who could have an essential thing to say about both games), he's often asked about gaps in the story and shaet, but once they asked him about chrono cross' ending, and he said that it was meant to make the player someone with more hope in the future. We, as human beings, tend to see future as the blackest thing, we tend to do that, generation after generation. The fact that this series has been so inspirational (in it's and our early years, as well as in the case of CC), may correspond to the fact that is trying to say something much more relevant than "save the artic!" or "marry blond girls!". Maybe it's actually talking about human existence, and how we, as participants of life, and life, as the place where we stand, are the actor and the scenario where the dream known as Entity produces itself. And living through this dream, this Entity existance, would mean to live everyday as things are going to get better and as we are the main characters of that fundamental change in the course of time and dimensions.

I don't know. Just I thought I had. I was really pissed of with people theorizing about facts instead of ways, so there it is.

Thanks for taking the time to read.