The Adventures of Peaches, Part Eighteen
Oct. 17th, 2022 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingThe Subterranean Shunning‐Grounds is an excellent sewer level. Truly excellent.
It has a fun surprise at the bottom that is one of the worst things I've ever seen. It literally gave me nightmares last night. I don't think I'm going to get over that for a while.
Anyway, now that I'm in the business of murdering NPCs, I killed the Loathsome Dung Eater, who was locked in a remote cell in the sewers. Apparently, if you let him live, he goes straight to kill another NPC that I'm very fond of: Blackguard Big Boggart, who hangs out by the water and hosts his own private low country boil. The reason Dung Eater does this is because he's a gross disgusting creep.
I was happy to kill Dung Eater. It was a fun battle - duels in Elden Ring are much more enjoyable than fights against giant monsters - and also I hate him. This made me think about what it takes for me to want to be out for murder in a video game. If the villain is someone like Ganondorf, who dresses well and speaks beautifully and thinks deeply about his actions and but got himself way in over his head with Eternal Hell Curse Goddess Kingdom, you can't help but feel sympathy for them. On the other hand, if the villain is essentially nothing more than some messed-up serial killer, then they can die.
I really do think that there's value in the catharsis of punishing evil in video games. Maybe you can't fix the greater evil of the story, but at least you can take of care this one horrible thing. And I think making the "evil" of a "sympathetic" villain seem almost completely arbitrary isn't really as profound as maybe some writers seem to think it is. Like, this character isn't wrong, but you're going to kill them anyway, how brave and heroic of you. Fuck that. Don't be a coward. Give me a character like the Dung Eater and make me absolutely want to murder them.
It has a fun surprise at the bottom that is one of the worst things I've ever seen. It literally gave me nightmares last night. I don't think I'm going to get over that for a while.
Anyway, now that I'm in the business of murdering NPCs, I killed the Loathsome Dung Eater, who was locked in a remote cell in the sewers. Apparently, if you let him live, he goes straight to kill another NPC that I'm very fond of: Blackguard Big Boggart, who hangs out by the water and hosts his own private low country boil. The reason Dung Eater does this is because he's a gross disgusting creep.
I was happy to kill Dung Eater. It was a fun battle - duels in Elden Ring are much more enjoyable than fights against giant monsters - and also I hate him. This made me think about what it takes for me to want to be out for murder in a video game. If the villain is someone like Ganondorf, who dresses well and speaks beautifully and thinks deeply about his actions and but got himself way in over his head with Eternal Hell Curse Goddess Kingdom, you can't help but feel sympathy for them. On the other hand, if the villain is essentially nothing more than some messed-up serial killer, then they can die.
I really do think that there's value in the catharsis of punishing evil in video games. Maybe you can't fix the greater evil of the story, but at least you can take of care this one horrible thing. And I think making the "evil" of a "sympathetic" villain seem almost completely arbitrary isn't really as profound as maybe some writers seem to think it is. Like, this character isn't wrong, but you're going to kill them anyway, how brave and heroic of you. Fuck that. Don't be a coward. Give me a character like the Dung Eater and make me absolutely want to murder them.
