![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
what it's like to be a kid
Jan. 27th, 2026 11:32 pmA few days ago, I finished playing Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, which is a kids’ game for kids developed by Level-5 with art and animation done by Studio Ghibli. And I loved it. What a fantastic game. It's got that Pokemon monster-collecting thing going on, a battle system like a hybrid of Tales and Dragon Quest, and it's got vibrant, timeless cel-shaded visuals, and it's even got music composed by Joe Hisaishi, the same guy who does the soundtracks for the Ghibli films. I would say it's one of the classic JRPGs, a literal must-play for fans of the genre. You play as this young kid named Oliver who goes around mending people's broken hearts with the power of love while literally saying stuff like “neato!” and “jeepers creepers!” The whole vibe is so innocent and uplifting and heartwarming, and not in a saccharine way, but in that special Studio Ghibli way, like Castle in the Sky mixed with Kiki’s Delivery Service, or Howl’s Moving Castle but Howl is like 10 years old and not a total asshole. Ni No Kuni sits right up there in the Ghibli pantheon of greatness. There's a beautiful city filled with fish-themed imagery ruled by cats called Ding Dong Dell, and a desert town called Al Mamoon ruled by a gigantic cow, just to give you an example of the greatness. It was a total joy to play. It took me like 58 hours over the span of a month to complete. And I really should have played it sooner, but in 2013, when the game originally came out, I was far more dark and edgy than I am now, if you can believe that; back then all the childish whimsy put me off playing it, but not now, not anymore, because now, now I love children, but not in a Michael Jackson sort of way, in a spiritual, reverent sort of way.
The main character, Oliver, who’s supposedly 13 but looks 9 or 10, illustrates all the reasons as to why I love children: their carefree attitudes, their innocence, their resilience, their simplicity, their willingness to learn, their aloofness toward the passage of time, their general sense of wonder, and especially their ability to tell right from wrong without even really thinking about it. It also helps that Oliver looks a lot like my son, with his thick orange hair and pale rosy cheeks, which makes the character especially endearing to me.
One thing I really love about Oliver is that, when bad guys come around with all their philosophical rationalizations for their bad-guy ways, he’s just like, “Uh, you can't just do that, that's mean,” offering no philosophical counterargument as to why the bad guys are mean, just that they are, period. And why should he posit a counterargument? He's a kid. He doesn’t need to. He just knows, in his gut, that the bad guys are doing bad things, usually because they’re hurting people, and Oliver just instinctively sort of knows that you aren't supposed to hurt people, because that’s mean, duh. It’s that simple for Oliver. He doesn’t need to sit around pontificating about why the bad guys are mean, he doesn’t need to morally justify his position. He’s a kid. He just knows injustice when he sees it. He doesn't have to think about it too much. He just knows that he doesn’t need a reason to help people.
I think, nowadays, people think they need a reason to help people. Oliver just helps people. Maybe we can learn something from Oliver.
And granted, a lot of these JRPG protagonists do this sort of thing, this whole good-for-goodness’-sake thing, they say the bad guys are wrong without explaining why, without justifying themselves, but when other protagonists do this it sometimes feels a little shallow, especially when the protagonist is an adult, who you would expect some cogent reasoning from; and sometimes, in these other games, the protagonist's lack of argument, their silence, leaves you sympathizing with the villain a little bit, like “Huh, maybe the bad guy is right; he was tortured in a prison for three years after all, maybe he does have some good points, maybe humanity does cause a lot of suffering, maybe we are sick and evil and deserve to die.” But no, to Oliver, that’s obviously wrong, and coming from Oliver, this sometimes-shallow retort of “you can't just do that, that’s wrong” doesn't feel shallow at all, because Oliver’s literally a kid, he practices gut morality, he doesn’t need a reason to help people; he sees something that he feels is messed up and immediately calls it out as messed up without even thinking about it. He knows that you can’t just blow up the world because humanity is bad sometimes. To Oliver, that’s obviously wrong. And he doesn’t need a reason for why it’s wrong; I mean, he literally goes around saying stuff like “neato!” and “jeepers creepers!” for God's sake. He just knows mean stuff is wrong. He just knows you don’t go around killing people. You don’t just go around enslaving people. You don’t just go around blowing stuff up. Obviously, these things are wrong. Why are they wrong, you ask? Who cares. They just are. Deal with it, bad guy. For Oliver, there’s no utilitarian death calculus going on, there’s no “well, if we blow up this city now, we may save lives later” or “if we don’t round up all the illegal immigrants now, some of them might commit murders later” type of thing. Oliver doesn’t think about trolley problems. He just knows stuff is wrong. And this sort of begs the question, if a kid like Oliver knows this stuff is obviously wrong, why don’t so many adults in the real world know it?
Why are powerful people all over the world sitting around in their high castles giving the green light to enslave, bomb, and torture people on the daily? Why are these powerful people always doing things that every kid in the world knows are wrong? They often cite things like “the greater good,” but bro, you are literally killing people. Maybe they’ve forgotten something. Maybe they’ve forgotten what it's like to be a kid? “But, but, you have to consider the geopolitics involved, and the oil, and there are bad guys over there, and we have to consider the long-term survivability of our country, and the well-being of our people, resources aren’t unlimited you know, and, and, and.” No. No you don’t. What you are doing is obviously wrong. You don’t hurt people. Oliver seems to know this. Most kids seem to know this. So why don’t our world leaders seem to know this?
I know what you’re about to say. You’re about to say, “but the world isn’t so simple.” But why not? Why isn’t it so simple? Is it truly the resources, the bad guys, the geopolitics, or are those just excuses, excuses for the fact that we all seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid?
In Ni No Kuni, in the cutscene right after the final battle with the White Witch, when she’s on her knees lamenting over her defeat at the hands of a literal child, and she’s doing the whole bad-guy-rationalization thing, saying, verbatim, “No, why? This world is imperfect. It must be destroyed so that a new one may begin,” Oliver simply responds with, “No. You can’t just tear it up and start over. It may not be perfect, but nothing is, so you make the best of what you’ve got. When things go wrong, you have to try to make them right,” and that’s it, that’s his grand speech, like he’s delivering lines to four-year-olds in an episode of Barney or something. And do you know what the White Witch does? She literally starts crying.
What I’m saying is, maybe some of these powerful world-leader-type people could learn something from a child like Oliver. Maybe we all could.
I think the next time some powerful world leader is presented with the option of bombing some town in the Middle East or something, maybe they should stop to think, “What would my children think of me doing this?” And if they don’t have kids, perhaps they should think instead, “What would I think about this if I were still a child?” And perhaps then we might be closer to making a world suitable for children, because, when we get right down to it, that should be the goal: a world suitable for children. Because, right now, we are far, far away from that world; instead, we are in a world suitable for adults who are trained as quickly as possible on forgetting what it’s like to be children.
We should try to remember.
And that’s another thing I like about Ni No Kuni: Oliver never grows up. He’s a kid the whole time. And, contrary to what so many other coming-of-age stories about young kids try to do, the ending of the game doesn’t force this whole “now it’s time for Oliver to put his big boy pants on and get a real job” thing. He’s literally a kid the whole time. I mean, upon delivering the final blow to the White Witch, while standing in a literal void realm of death, Oliver can still be heard saying “neato!” for Christ’s sake. My point being, despite his long, arduous journey, Oliver has not become jaded or cynical or hardened by the world. He has not adopted an “adult” mentality. I mean, he has learned some things, but his outlook has not changed; he has not “grown up” per se. And this is refreshing. I’m tired of all these “grow up” narratives in media.
I think people should try to be childlike forever.
They say youth is wasted on the young, that kids never appreciate being kids. They say this is a tragedy. But I disagree. This is only a tragedy in hindsight, when you’re an adult. As a child, it’s not tragic at all; in fact, for a child to stop and appreciate their youth, they would first need to acknowledge the transience of youth, the death clock, how time is always ticking away, how things are always decaying, and this is not something that children need concern themselves with. The whole “youth is wasted on the young” thing implies that the only way to appreciate something is by being fully aware of it, that only by knowing something will end can you truly enjoy it. But that’s an adult idea, born from nostalgia and loss. And it’s bullshit. A child doesn’t need to savor the moment to enjoy it; all they need to do is live in it, in the moment, and that’s what they do: they live in the moment, unconcerned with the passing of time and its implications, and this is a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing we should all try to do.
And besides, age is just a number. You can be a kid at any time.
Try it sometime.
The main character, Oliver, who’s supposedly 13 but looks 9 or 10, illustrates all the reasons as to why I love children: their carefree attitudes, their innocence, their resilience, their simplicity, their willingness to learn, their aloofness toward the passage of time, their general sense of wonder, and especially their ability to tell right from wrong without even really thinking about it. It also helps that Oliver looks a lot like my son, with his thick orange hair and pale rosy cheeks, which makes the character especially endearing to me.
One thing I really love about Oliver is that, when bad guys come around with all their philosophical rationalizations for their bad-guy ways, he’s just like, “Uh, you can't just do that, that's mean,” offering no philosophical counterargument as to why the bad guys are mean, just that they are, period. And why should he posit a counterargument? He's a kid. He doesn’t need to. He just knows, in his gut, that the bad guys are doing bad things, usually because they’re hurting people, and Oliver just instinctively sort of knows that you aren't supposed to hurt people, because that’s mean, duh. It’s that simple for Oliver. He doesn’t need to sit around pontificating about why the bad guys are mean, he doesn’t need to morally justify his position. He’s a kid. He just knows injustice when he sees it. He doesn't have to think about it too much. He just knows that he doesn’t need a reason to help people.
I think, nowadays, people think they need a reason to help people. Oliver just helps people. Maybe we can learn something from Oliver.
And granted, a lot of these JRPG protagonists do this sort of thing, this whole good-for-goodness’-sake thing, they say the bad guys are wrong without explaining why, without justifying themselves, but when other protagonists do this it sometimes feels a little shallow, especially when the protagonist is an adult, who you would expect some cogent reasoning from; and sometimes, in these other games, the protagonist's lack of argument, their silence, leaves you sympathizing with the villain a little bit, like “Huh, maybe the bad guy is right; he was tortured in a prison for three years after all, maybe he does have some good points, maybe humanity does cause a lot of suffering, maybe we are sick and evil and deserve to die.” But no, to Oliver, that’s obviously wrong, and coming from Oliver, this sometimes-shallow retort of “you can't just do that, that’s wrong” doesn't feel shallow at all, because Oliver’s literally a kid, he practices gut morality, he doesn’t need a reason to help people; he sees something that he feels is messed up and immediately calls it out as messed up without even thinking about it. He knows that you can’t just blow up the world because humanity is bad sometimes. To Oliver, that’s obviously wrong. And he doesn’t need a reason for why it’s wrong; I mean, he literally goes around saying stuff like “neato!” and “jeepers creepers!” for God's sake. He just knows mean stuff is wrong. He just knows you don’t go around killing people. You don’t just go around enslaving people. You don’t just go around blowing stuff up. Obviously, these things are wrong. Why are they wrong, you ask? Who cares. They just are. Deal with it, bad guy. For Oliver, there’s no utilitarian death calculus going on, there’s no “well, if we blow up this city now, we may save lives later” or “if we don’t round up all the illegal immigrants now, some of them might commit murders later” type of thing. Oliver doesn’t think about trolley problems. He just knows stuff is wrong. And this sort of begs the question, if a kid like Oliver knows this stuff is obviously wrong, why don’t so many adults in the real world know it?
Why are powerful people all over the world sitting around in their high castles giving the green light to enslave, bomb, and torture people on the daily? Why are these powerful people always doing things that every kid in the world knows are wrong? They often cite things like “the greater good,” but bro, you are literally killing people. Maybe they’ve forgotten something. Maybe they’ve forgotten what it's like to be a kid? “But, but, you have to consider the geopolitics involved, and the oil, and there are bad guys over there, and we have to consider the long-term survivability of our country, and the well-being of our people, resources aren’t unlimited you know, and, and, and.” No. No you don’t. What you are doing is obviously wrong. You don’t hurt people. Oliver seems to know this. Most kids seem to know this. So why don’t our world leaders seem to know this?
I know what you’re about to say. You’re about to say, “but the world isn’t so simple.” But why not? Why isn’t it so simple? Is it truly the resources, the bad guys, the geopolitics, or are those just excuses, excuses for the fact that we all seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid?
In Ni No Kuni, in the cutscene right after the final battle with the White Witch, when she’s on her knees lamenting over her defeat at the hands of a literal child, and she’s doing the whole bad-guy-rationalization thing, saying, verbatim, “No, why? This world is imperfect. It must be destroyed so that a new one may begin,” Oliver simply responds with, “No. You can’t just tear it up and start over. It may not be perfect, but nothing is, so you make the best of what you’ve got. When things go wrong, you have to try to make them right,” and that’s it, that’s his grand speech, like he’s delivering lines to four-year-olds in an episode of Barney or something. And do you know what the White Witch does? She literally starts crying.
What I’m saying is, maybe some of these powerful world-leader-type people could learn something from a child like Oliver. Maybe we all could.
I think the next time some powerful world leader is presented with the option of bombing some town in the Middle East or something, maybe they should stop to think, “What would my children think of me doing this?” And if they don’t have kids, perhaps they should think instead, “What would I think about this if I were still a child?” And perhaps then we might be closer to making a world suitable for children, because, when we get right down to it, that should be the goal: a world suitable for children. Because, right now, we are far, far away from that world; instead, we are in a world suitable for adults who are trained as quickly as possible on forgetting what it’s like to be children.
We should try to remember.
And that’s another thing I like about Ni No Kuni: Oliver never grows up. He’s a kid the whole time. And, contrary to what so many other coming-of-age stories about young kids try to do, the ending of the game doesn’t force this whole “now it’s time for Oliver to put his big boy pants on and get a real job” thing. He’s literally a kid the whole time. I mean, upon delivering the final blow to the White Witch, while standing in a literal void realm of death, Oliver can still be heard saying “neato!” for Christ’s sake. My point being, despite his long, arduous journey, Oliver has not become jaded or cynical or hardened by the world. He has not adopted an “adult” mentality. I mean, he has learned some things, but his outlook has not changed; he has not “grown up” per se. And this is refreshing. I’m tired of all these “grow up” narratives in media.
I think people should try to be childlike forever.
They say youth is wasted on the young, that kids never appreciate being kids. They say this is a tragedy. But I disagree. This is only a tragedy in hindsight, when you’re an adult. As a child, it’s not tragic at all; in fact, for a child to stop and appreciate their youth, they would first need to acknowledge the transience of youth, the death clock, how time is always ticking away, how things are always decaying, and this is not something that children need concern themselves with. The whole “youth is wasted on the young” thing implies that the only way to appreciate something is by being fully aware of it, that only by knowing something will end can you truly enjoy it. But that’s an adult idea, born from nostalgia and loss. And it’s bullshit. A child doesn’t need to savor the moment to enjoy it; all they need to do is live in it, in the moment, and that’s what they do: they live in the moment, unconcerned with the passing of time and its implications, and this is a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing we should all try to do.
And besides, age is just a number. You can be a kid at any time.
Try it sometime.
