just words

You ever have one of those days wherein you roll out of bed at three in the morning, bladder levels so in the red that you nearly piss yourself, so you stumble to the bathroom, nod off on the toilet, hygiene bar going down because you get some pee on your hands or whatever, then you compulsively wash your hands and brush your teeth as if some extradimensional being is just clicking away, commanding you to do things for some reason, then you realize your hunger bar is like non-existent, so you make yourself some breakfast in the kitchen, but for some reason the food has no taste at all, yet you force yourself to eat regardless, knowing that otherwise your hunger bar will just keep dropping, and of course you don’t want to starve on your first day at your new job as a Typesetter, which starts in ten minutes, so you speed-walk mindlessly to the bedroom to get dressed and that’s when you hear what sounds like someone just mercilessly holding down a car horn, so you look out the window and see Carpool John in his old busted-up 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air doing exactly that, mercilessly holding down the car horn, so you spin in place super fast like a tornado, which somehow sucks in all your work-appropriate clothes and magically applies them to your body, then you bolt out of the house, force the rusted Chevy door open, disappear into the passenger seat somehow, and say some dumb clichéd shit like, “another day, another dollar,” before holding on for dear life because Carpool John floors it, then the car vanishes down the road as if you just drove through some dark portal straight into Dante’s vision of Hell?

If any of this feels familiar, you might have more in common with a Sim from The Sims than you realize, because this is reality for little Forrest Unknown, or “FU” for short, who does this same routine on every day ending in the letter Y, which is each day of the week, or until I turn the game off.

I’m not sure what FU actually does at work, to be honest, because after the car disappears, time speeds up, hours pass, and suddenly he’s right back where he started, in front of his two-bedroom home, stepping out of that old busted-up 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air, extra $200 to his name, hunger bar totally drained, fun levels absolutely abysmal, so he goes inside, takes a piss, makes some lunch, plays video games on his PC for a few hours until his social bar is in the red, at which point he calls up Mortimer, whom he hates, invites him over, and Mortimer brings a friend, a little girl named Cassandra, and they overstay their welcome, sticking around all night, becoming so tired that they fall asleep in the living room, and Cassandra urinates all over the floor for some reason, so FU has to clean up the soppy piss puddle with a mop, which puts him in a bad mood and drains his energy bar, at which point he goes to bed, sleeps for like five hours before rolling out of bed at three in the morning, bladder levels so in the red that he makes a beeline to the bathroom where he nearly falls asleep on the toilet, thus getting pee on his hands, which makes his hygiene levels go down, so he washes his hands and brushes his teeth, at which point he realizes his hunger bar is like non-existent, so he makes himself some breakfast, scarfs it down even though it tastes like nothing, then he realizes he has to get to work in like ten minutes, so he speed-walks mindlessly to the bedroom, at which point he hears what sounds like someone just mercilessly holding down a car horn, so he looks outside and sees Carpool John in his old busted-up 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air doing exactly that, mercilessly holding down the car horn, so FU spins in place super fast like a tornado, which somehow sucks in all his work-appropriate clothes and magically applies them to his body, then he bolts out of the house, forces the rusted Chevy door open, disappears into the passenger seat somehow, and probably says some dumb clichéd shit like, “another day, another dollar,” before holding on for dear life because Carpool John floors it, vanishing down the road as if he just drove through some dark portal straight into Dante’s vision of Hell, and then time speeds up and FU is right back where he started, in front of his home, stepping out of that old busted-up 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air, extra $200 to his name, hunger bar totally drained, fun levels absolutely abysmal, so he goes inside, makes some lunch, plays some video games, and I think you get the point. It’s a never-ending struggle for little FU, like he’s stuck in some sort of heinous time loop, or a little something I like to call the fucking rat race that is modern first-world life.

It’s depressing, watching FU repeat his boring little mundane routine all in service to the almighty Simoleon dollar, just so he can keep himself alive and buy more electronics and stuff, which he then uses to distract himself from the existentially dreadful fact that, despite how much money he makes, he will always have to repeat boring little mundane routines in order to continue existing, as if the routines themselves only serve to facilitate distracting himself from those very same routines.

I will say, however, that little FU is moving up in the world. After just one week as a Typesetter, he got a promotion, he’s now a “Game Reviewer,” which the blue in-game text box describes as, quote, “the lowliest writing job you can get,” unquote, which I can’t help but agree with, having done the whole game reviewer thing myself for a time, the only job requirements being having passed third-grade English, and being of the smug belief that your subjective tastes are actually objective facts, and also being able to come up with some sort of cute point system wherein stars are replaced with, like, video game controllers or cans of Monster Energy Drink or sticks of extra-strength deodorant, all things hardcore gamers desperately need, which is to say that I hope little FU sees the error of his ways and grows out of this new job quickly, even though I do like to imagine that, on FU’s first day as a Game Reviewer, he maybe wrote a very meta review of the actual game that he himself exists in, which I like to imagine includes the following paragraph,

“Despite The Sims’ retro charm, zany humour, and addicting gameplay loops, there are no words to describe just how depressing it is to watch your little Sim guy repeat the same boring mundane everyday tasks that you yourself were doing right before you sat down at your PC to escape the very same boring mundane everyday tasks you were so desperate to avoid in the first place. Whether intentional on behalf of Maxis or not, The Sims remains one of the greatest Misery Simulators on the gaming market today. 10 out of 10 Lexapros.”

I’m not trying to be funny here. Well, maybe I am, a little bit. But I’m mostly trying to be serious. Because as I played The Sims, watching little Forrest Unknown going about his daily tasks, which were eerily similar to my own, I was overcome by something I can only describe as the nihilistic heebie-jeebies. I was starting to see myself acutely within FU. I was starting to think that my life was not dissimilar to a video game in which some disembodied megalomaniac is just clicking around commanding me to do things. I was starting to question the whole meaning of existence and all that stuff. And before you know it, I was fucking miserable. And I figured, you know what, I bet little Forrest Unknown is miserable too.

So I decided to put him out of his misery. I decided to kill him. I decided this would be symbolic, somehow.

What I did was, I directed little FU to go into the kitchen, then I went into build mode and removed all the doors so he couldn’t escape, then I placed a bunch of toasters and microwaves and stuff in there, then I removed the smoke detector so the fire department wouldn’t catch wind of what I was doing, and the whole time I was doing this there was some upbeat pop music playing from the stereo in the living room, the singer was babbling incoherently in Simlish, and this felt dichotomously significant for some reason, then, knowing that FU was a terrible cook, I commanded him to make lunch, hoping he would accidentally start a fire, so he goes over to the stove and starts making lunch, which, to my surprise, he prepares successfully without managing to start a fire, so I command him to place the food on the floor and try again, so he starts making lunch again, but he prepares it successfully again, so I command him to place the food on the floor again and make lunch again, but he prepares it successfully a third time, so I have him do it like ten more times, each time successful, but now there are like flies and stuff all over the kitchen, and he starts babbling incoherently about the mess, but I just keep going, I keep commanding him to make lunch, which eventually turns into dinner, which eventually turns into breakfast, on account of all the time that has passed, at which point the whole kitchen is like a fly breeding ground, the buzz cacophonous, and FU’s energy bar has become so depleted that he passes out on the floor with his head in a plate of moldy fly-covered food, so I wait for him to wake up, at which point I command him to prepare food again, but he’s successful once more, so I start to suspect that, throughout this whole food-preparing fiasco, he has become so proficient at cooking that he cannot actually start a fire on accident anymore, then he pees himself, because he can’t reach a toilet, so now he’s standing on rotten food and piss, and at this point I’m starting to feel really bad for the guy, so I think to myself, there has to be a better way, so I pause the game and cycle through some of the entertainment items that can be purchased, and that’s when I find the fireworks set, which I quickly discover can be placed indoors, so I buy one of those and command FU to use it, at which point he walks up to it, fiddles with it, and it starts sparking like crazy, so he steps back, near the washing machine, and watches the firework set, which, after a few seconds, launches its first round of fireworks right into the kitchen ceiling, producing a beautiful flash of color, which of course catches the kitchen on fire, and the pop music has changed to some sort of sick metal riff at this point, all while FU is just standing there clapping his hands, which I suspect is part of the game’s code, to have Sims clap after firework launches, but it ends up feeling like FU is clapping for his own demise, which I find poetic in a way, but he doesn’t clap for very long because, upon noticing the fire and the fact that there are literally no doors to escape through, he starts flailing his arms like crazy and babbling incoherently, but he doesn’t move, he just stands there, even as the inferno creeps closer to him from tile to tile, he never moves, he just babbles and flails, even when the blaze catches up with him and he becomes totally engulfed, he’s still babbling and screaming, crazy rock music blaring from the living room stereo, only little FU’s head and arms visible as the fire consumes his entire blocky body, and he babbles and flails right up to the very end when he falls face first into the great blaze, at which point he babbles and flails no more, but the sick metal riff keeps going, as if part of some occult ritual intending to summon some sort of crazy demon, which actually works, because out of nowhere a skeleton wearing a dark gray robe appears, it’s the Grim Reaper, Death himself, and he starts lifting his skeletal arms up and down, up and down, as if performing some dark death ritual, and he does this until the whole kitchen is nothing more than a gray pile of ash, at which point a blue text box pops up and says, 

“Deepest sympathy! Forrest has just died. Though the body is gone, the spirit will always remain.”

And I feel free at last, deciding never to play The Sims ever again.

But before I exit the game, I hear a familiar sound, it’s Carpool John, mercilessly holding down the car horn, beckoning me to return to the boring little mundane routines I so desperately seek to avoid.

Gustave XIII, from SaGa Frontier II, is probably the most compelling character of any video game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played a lot of video games. He may even be one of the most interesting characters in all of fiction, although I don’t know if his story is truly unique or perhaps lifted from some ancient archetype that, deep down, we can all relate to. I say this because, in Gustave’s story, we can learn not only about ourselves but also something about the human condition, something existential.

So bear with me a moment, because I want to talk about Gustave, and to do that, I need to provide some context.

The world of SaGa Frontier II is one of magic. They call it “anima.” Everyone in the world of SaGa Frontier II is born with the ability to wield anima, by drawing it out of objects from the natural world, like wood and stone and water, to cast spells. Think something like the television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, but instead of certain people only being able to wield certain elements, anyone can harness any element. So, in the world of SaGa Frontier II, wielding anima is as ordinary as being able to breathe. Everyone can do it.

But when I say “everyone,” I actually mean everyone except Gustave. He was born without the ability to wield anima.

Gustave, being a king's son, is the rightful heir of the kingdom of Thermes. The heir, however, must possess the ability to wield anima. So, at the age of seven, to determine the legitimacy of his rule, Gustave must pass a test. The test itself is simple. All he has to do is lift the ceremonial sword, the Firebrand, and, by channeling his anima, make it glow a little bit. But, of course, being anima-less, Gustave fails the test, he cannot make the sword glow. And this enrages his father, the king of Thermes.

“Common trees, grass, and even rocks have Anima. He is less than a rock. I had high hopes for him. That is why I feel so betrayed. It is unforgivable. It is not permissible for a member of the royal family not to have Anima. He will be banished.”

Gustave and his mother, Sophie, are banished from Thermes, and as they leave the city, the townspeople throw things and shout all sorts of names at him. One of those names in particular stands out to the young Gustave.

“You good-for-nothing!”

Gustave, now living in exile with his mother, grows up believing himself to be a “good-for-nothing,” and this belief develops into an insecurity so profound that he becomes an antisocial, angry young man with serious behavioral issues, taking out his frustration on everyone around him, including his one and only friend, Flynn, and even his mother, who, after an incident in which Gustave throws stones at birds, still believes in her young son.

“Gustave, look! Is it the power of spells that makes flowers and trees blossom? Are birds able to fly because they can use spells? Even though you can't use spells, you are still human.”

At the age of thirteen, Gustave meets a blacksmith who specializes in making kitchen knives out of steel, and this intrigues Gustave. Steel, in the world of SaGa Frontier II, is an anima-less substance. It cannot be used to channel any sort of anima whatsoever, but it is hardy and strong. So Gustave comes up with a crazy idea. He will become an apprentice blacksmith and forge a steel blade, which, apparently, in the world of SaGa Frontier II, had never been done before, because wood and stone were typically seen as the better choice, as they could be used to channel anima, whereas steel could not.

When asked by the blacksmith why he, Gustave, wants to forge a steel blade, Gustave says, “I cannot use anima. I need to find another way to build up my strength.” And so, after a year of blacksmithing, Gustave forges his first steel blade, and he, of course, immediately takes it out into the local caves to build up his strength by slaying monsters, and he does this obsessively, day after day.

As an aside, the world of SaGa Frontier II is not black and white. Much like real life, everyone in SaGa Frontier II is morally gray to an extent, and Gustave is no different. To draw a modern parallel, Gustave exists in a world similar to Game of Thrones, wherein kings are constantly plotting to kill each other and endless wars are fought over territory, if that gives you any idea. So, with that context, please do not take my words on Gustave as praise of his actions, as from this point onward, his actions are warlike and lead to a lot of bloodshed.

Anyway, through excessive training and sheer force of will, Gustave, despite his crippling lack of anima, becomes far stronger than pretty much anyone else in the world of SaGa Frontier II. And not only does he become stronger, he becomes more well-read and more introspective through obsessive, self-motivated study. The interesting thing about all this, however, is that his motivation was not altruistic, not at all. In fact, what motivated him was that one name he was called way back on the day he was exiled from Thermes, “good-for-nothing.” From that day onward, Gustave believed he was truly good-for-nothing, and this belief fostered a deep sense of inadequacy within him. But instead of being discouraged, that inadequacy drove him to prove himself, to prove he was not a good-for-nothing, to prove that, despite being anima-less, he was still human, just like his mother said, and that he could accomplish anything anyone else could. Maybe, he thought, he could accomplish even more.

So that’s what he does, accomplishes even more. In his obsession to prove that he’s not a good-for-nothing, Gustave takes over the world, more or less.

Through tactical espionage, political maneuvering, military conquest, and much bloodshed, Gustave comes to rule over a small kingdom, and using the might of this small kingdom, he storms the shores of Thermes, executes his own brother, and conquers his homeland, all to prove that he's not a good-for-nothing.

But herein lies the question, does this calm Gustave’s fear of inadequacy?

Upon landing on the shores of Thermes, Gustave has an exchange with his generals. This exchange, combined with the story of Gustave outlined herein, is what I believe reveals some existential truth about the human condition.

The following is the exchange between Gustave and his generals, copy-pasted from the script of SaGa Frontier II found here.

Kelvin: Did you ever think that one day you would return home commanding an army? How do you feel? 

Gustave (closing eyes): I wonder what mother would've said if she were still alive. 

Kelvin: She would obviously be very pleased. 

Gustave (opens eyes): I will now have to fight my half brother. I'm sure mother would have no desire for such a bloody act. 

Kelvin: It's not like you to be so weak spirited. 

Gustave: Soon, many Animas will disappear from the face of the earth. They will  desperately fight for themselves and for their families. They believe that, if I gain the throne, those things that have been lost will not have been in vain. However, I do not want the throne. I just want to see what I am capable of. I am sacrificing everyone's Anima for so selfish a motive. How appropriate, coming from a man with no Anima, eh? 

Kelvin: Get one thing straight, Gustave. No matter what you may be thinking, I don't want you ever to utter such words in front of our men. You understand? 

(enter Nebelstern)

Nebelstern: So this is where you were. 

Gustave: Is the landing proceeding as planned, General? 

Nebelstern: Yes, there are no problems. The landing has been a success, and now I would like to send messengers out to each region. I would like them to spread the word that the rightful heir, the son born to Gustave XII and Queen Sophie, has returned home.  

Gustave: I am not the rightful heir, General. I'm just a good-for-nothing.