or: "Turn, Hellhound, Turn!"
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"Dein hässlicher Bruder,
ein Schlag ins Gesicht"
Eisbrecher - Verrückt
"So how much easier would life be if nineteen million motherfuckers grew to be just like me?"
Eminem - Who Knew
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Anybody remember Galaxy Quest? Not whatever sequel or spin-off or remake Hollywood's bragging about making now, for fear of originality. I mean the original parody of Star Trek and by extension SciFi fandom from 1999, which turned out to be both funny and an unexpectedly engaging little SF adventure flick and contributed in no small amount to the public's increased acceptance of SF/Fantasy entertainment over the following years.
Long story short, actors from a defunct Trek-ish TV series get shanghaied by space aliens to Last Starfighter to death some green lizard space general. They learn to grow into their heroic roles, save the day, and one guy fucks a tentacle monster. As basic plots go, you've heard better. Execution was key. Among Galaxy Quest's virtues, it didn't skimp on the special effects just because it was a comedy. Glossy visuals prevented the audience from disengaging from the heroes' perils, hitting that dramedy balance point upon which our expectations can never quite settle into complacency. I've recently found myself thinking how much the film relied on the uncanny valley effect. Tim Allen for instance would normally make a terrible SciFi protagonist... until you realize he's actually playing William Shatner, now pretty universally recognized as a terrible SciFi protagonist. He's not supposed to be a good fit. But, more importantly of course, the Thermians in their ill-fitting human suits, while heavily feminized/neotenized to secure the audience's unthinking sympathy, also maintained enough rigidity in their movements and their taut, awkward facial expressions to remain offputting at the best of times.
It reminds me of a creative work far less appreciated by the modern public at large, Rodin's Burghers of Calais, who are not feminized or grinning babyishly at the audience. They're a bunch of unsympathetic, sour-faced curmudgeons dragging their feet and avoiding eye contact. It takes a bit of viewing to notice the almost imperceptible caricature traces in their features, most obvious in their slightly oversized, bony hands, but also, once you know what to look for, in their emaciated, siege-starved sunken eyes and senescence-enlarged ears and noses. If Rodin wanted to show human bravery with human features, he wound up more human than human.
If you've been paying attention to my bloggerin' here you probably guessed I'd somehow bring this around to video games at some point. Good for you, have a cookie, shut up and listen: the burghers are a team. A team, you got that? The town had wanted a single heroic figure symbolizing glorious martyrdom, a fairytale Prince Charming for viewers to look up to and pretend to identify with. Rodin gave them personal suffering and resolve marching alongside themselves. That should be the sentiment evoked whenever you queue up for a team game, not the false expectation of playing the hero but amor fati, that bitter plodding slide into the inimical fray, that embrance of a death worth dying, that "far, far better thing I do" raging into "cursed be he that first cries 'hold, enough!'"
This is far from the first time I've brought this up. I'll gladly support anyone in refusing the idea of innate debt or duty in real life. You owe the apes around you nothing simply for being born, or being born the wrong sex or race. But if you willingly and through no necessity join a group activity, like a game, you implicitly devote yourself to the group, and any behavior to the contrary should be immediately and mercilessly punished and exterminated. You exist to suffer and die taking as many enemies down with you as possible; that is your only worth and your only purpose, end of story. While parasitic vermin playing team games only to pad their own personal scores, using their teammates as props, plagued online games (as they do every human endeavor) from the beginning, the past decades' cultural devolution hitting rock bottom in snowflake narcissism has by now ensured such behavior drowns out any better alternatives. Every online game seems to consist predominantly of dickless little bitches running away from fights, taking the easiest way out, and bitching at their betters for not running away faster, condemning any 'tryhards' struggling toward the objective. Whether it's teleporting around the map looking for effortless captures, or spamming surrender votes as soon as it doesn't look like they'll get a free win, or letting your team fight 4v5 while you hit defenseless inanimate objects, or yet another life gain proc card deck, the idea that only the easiest option is worth taking mirrors only too well our real world popular politics, the spineless little twerps rallying behind the most widely accepted pablum they can trumpet like 'slavery is bad' or 'babies are cute' in abject terror of being forced to argue an unpopular point.
Say what you will about the youth of the nineties, but at least we remembered how to hate ourselves - not just our race, sex or sexuality, but our own personal failings.
Given that your role in a game can be more viscerally your own and that ideas are easier to workshop and play out in a virtual space maybe you should be trying a little harder to teach the up and coming generation to grow a fucking spine via online games. And sure, I'd try to make them tie nooses around their necks and accept their fates with grim determination. You are a shitstain on your team's asshole and your only worth lies in dying in its service. Any little retard who panics and runs instead of helping allies? Knock his teeth out and throw him off a bridge. The penalty for desertion is execution. No matter how much your score is suffering, keep trudging to the gallows like those burghers. I'd probably fail, but that's how I'd do it. Go for the throat. But maybe lycanthropy ain't for everyone.
So, okay, fine, you want a cheerier option? Self-sacrifice still hinges on seeing oneself as not entirely human, not heroic, not the nec plus ultra of the team's aspirations, not a woman or a child whose well-being comes first. We still desperately need some dwarven steadfastness. At least remember those plucky, sappy, dopey, lovable Thermians from Galaxy Quest, supporting cast in their own story, inhumanly awkward and imperfect, hopelessly out of their depth in an open conflict and seeking heroes... but also willing to stand by those heroes to the bitter end. If nobody can drum up a proper berserker rage anymore, at least make the new slogan of team activities that slightly off-kilter cry of:
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