The Reveal
Emma Emmerich reveals that the disc the President supplied Raiden is capable of disabling an AI that she had been developing for the Patriots. The purpose of Emma’s work is to create GW, an artificial intelligence that will cull the sea of information that has been forming since the inception of the internet and alter it to meet the needs of the Patriots. Much like how Peter Stillman created HD and tricked Quinn into believing false information, Emma’s creation of GW can alter information from the past, even without anyone’s knowledge. It does this by automation due to the size of the project and the amount of data being created at each moment. This is the first reveal of what lies beyond for Raiden. Up until this point, we see contradictions in what we see and the information given. From the point of Peter Stillman’s death on, the game has been played much like the previous game in the series, MGS1. Lines keep being repeated, we are constantly reminded that we are playing a video game, all while Raiden and his girlfriend Rose bicker over their personal lives. Raiden is at the mercy of our actions, but he also seems to be expressing his growing unwillingness to continue on with his mission. The conversations with Rose, also paint Raiden very differently from how we would have looked at Solid Snake. In the first game, Snake is treated like a ladies man, flirting with almost every woman he comes across. Raiden is the exact opposite when it comes to his relationship. Rose keeps asking Raiden, “Do you know what day it is today?” Raiden is unable to answer. Almost everything else feels very similar to MGS on the Playstation, except for the stretches where we hear about Raiden and Rose’s personal lives. Even Emma’s initial rescue mirrors the way that Solid Snake saved the older Emmerich in the previous installment, with Emmerich peeing herself inside of a locker out of fear. Another character from the first game, Meryl Silverburgh, gets injured during a sniper battle and begins to bleed out in front of your eyes. Unfortunately, Emma is chosen to take this role in MGS2, and as you clear a path for her along the struts of the Big Shell, she is attacked and stabbed, leaving her to bleed out in front of your eyes once again.
As the team uploads Emma’s worm cluster that will stop GW and deactivate the new Metal Gear, Emma and Hal begin to reconcile their issues. Emma states she never hated Hal, but she always wanted him to see her as a woman. Hal states that is impossible. Emma asks Hal to refer to her as Emma, and not E.E., just once. Hal asks her what is wrong with E.E., and Emma dies in his arms. The moment Emma passes, Hal finally gives in and calls her by her preferred name, and finally also sees her as a woman. The name change is important, as Hal was unable to see the difference until it was too late. Emma had to transform, or die, before her brother’s eyes in order for him to see her how she wanted him. In that instant, Emma’s identity was changed.
Hal then reveals that he was the cause of his father’s suicide. He had carried on an affair with Emma’s mother, and after his father found out, he then killed himself in the family pool. Emma’s drowning incident was tied to his infidelity as well. Hal became so broken up with his actions that he fled. This can also be said about Quinn and Old Peter. Notice how many people in both of these works handle their issues. They all choose to look away from their past until it manifests into an issue that they can’t bypass.
In the novel, Peter reveals that he believes that Quinn is his son. He apologizes for how he treated him and tells Quinn that he is also happy that he has found him. He begins to give Quinn advice and tells him that children are a blessing. Peter informs Quinn that he can now die happy. He reiterates his belief that children are important, and then he tells Quinn one of the central messages of both pieces.
He tells Quinn that we must pass down our knowledge to future generations.
This is the last time we see Peter. The next day, he is gone, and both of our stories are about to make a drastic change. The removal of Old Peter and Emma causes a systematic shift that alters how the rest of each piece is processed. While City of Glass started out as a detective novel, and MGS2 started out as an action game, they are now going to turn into pieces of metafiction in order to hammer home the point of each work.
After Old Peter tells Quinn that he can die happy, he disappears. Quinn waits for him outside of the hotel, but he doesn’t come out. When Quinn goes inside and inquires about his whereabouts, the desk clerk tells Quinn that Peter Stillman has checked out while Quinn was not looking. Quinn leaves the hotel and is caught in the rain. He has an umbrella, but it has recently broken. Quinn begins to remember conversations with Peter Stillman regarding the meaning behind words and realizes that you call a broken umbrella by the same name, even though it no longer serves the same function. Quinn calls Virginia and informs them that he lost Peter. He also tells her that he felt like he was inside the older man’s skin. Quinn clearly is distraught over the disappearance of Peter.
With no other recourse, Quinn decides that he must find Paul Auster, the person who Young Peter was seeking. If he can find him, then he can put together what exactly is going on.
After Emma’s death inside the Big Shell, Raiden is shown that the Cyborg Ninja is Olga Gurlukovich. Gurlukovich was part of the Russian mercenary team which took part in the hijacking of the tanker where Solid Snake was framed. Her goal is to also have Raiden enter Arsenal Gear, and she negotiates a plan to get Snake, Raiden, and herself all aboard. They render Raiden unconscious and Solid Snake sneaks in while Raiden is given to Solidus and Ocelot. As Raiden goes out, we see the Big Shell begin to collapse. No longer needing to be covering up the existence of Arsenal Gear, it falls apart, much like the narrative the Patriots had constructed up to this point.
Quinn is able to find Paul Auster. Auster is a writer who lives in the city with his small family; a wife, and a young son. Auster informs Quinn he has never heard of the Stillmans, but he does seem to know Quinn’s name from somewhere, though he doesn’t know exactly where. The two of them discuss Paul’s new book rather than the Stillmans. Auster reveals that he is working on something in relation to Don Quixote. This piques Quinn’s interest, and the two of them discuss Cervantes’ novel. The two discuss Cide Hamete Benengeli, who is the fictional author of the book. For those who haven’t read Don Quixote, Cervantes states that he is not the actual author and that the story is constructed from archival information alongside Benengeli’s account. This is a metafictional trick used to make us, the reader, believe that Don Quixote could have been a real man. Once you start reading the rest of the novel, you realize that isn’t the case, but it’s done to make you consider the events in the novel with wonder. Could the events that take place in the novel be real? Does the presentation that Cervantes set up for us mean something? The two writers go back and forth on what the meaning of the book means for both of them. They wonder if Benengeli is real, or if Sancho Panza is the actual narrator because he was there to witness the entire story of Don Quixote. They both discuss the impact of who is telling the story, and how that could change the way the book is interpreted. In the middle of their discussion, Paul’s family comes home, and Quinn is able to meet his young son, who has a red yo-yo that he constantly plays with.
Quinn leaves the apartment with no new information, but he is informed by Paul that he will be sure to cash the check that the Stillmans will be sending him.
Quinn now has no purpose in life. He doesn’t want to go back to living as Daniel Quinn or writing Max Work novels. He wants to continue his work regarding Peter Stillman. He still has his strange dreams, and this time, he dreams of walking down the street while holding Paul Auster’s son’s hand. When he wakes up, he walks to a payphone near the hotel where Peter Stillman lived and attempts to contact Virginia, but he only gets a busy signal. He continues to wander the streets of the city, calling Virginia at random points in his day. He finds himself expecting to hear the busy signal over the line and when he hears it, finds comfort in its predictability.
Quinn begins to write everything in his notebook. Quinn has gone through another transformation as a writer. First, he was a serious literary writer, then a mystery writer, and after that, he became a detective writing about the case he was working on, and finally, he turned into a writer who simply wrote down everything he would see. Quinn had told Virginia that he felt like he was in Old Peter’s skin, and at this point in the novel, he lives much like Old Peter did, sloppily. Quinn observes the change in himself and realizes that fate has brought him here, but he isn’t sure how or why. He decides the only way to answer this new question is to investigate Young Peter and Virginia. He makes a home outside their residence inside of a dumpster in an alley across the street from the house. He watches the residence all day, writing down all he sees, only stopping to eat and sleep. He makes plans to reduce his sleeping and eating as much as possible so that he can consume his entire day observing what he witnesses outside the Stillman residence.
Raiden awakes inside a torture chamber. Again, this mirrors a scene from its predecessor, Raiden is strapped down to a table where he is informed of his family ties regarding the mission. In MGS1, this scene is used for Liquid Snake to reveal that he is in fact Solid Snake’s brother. In the second game, Solidus reveals that he is Raiden’s “father”. Raiden was actually a child soldier in the First Liberian Civil War. He was captured and trained, and then named Jack the Ripper, or the White Devil. When Rose confronts Jack about his past, he admits to it being true. When Rose asks why he wasn’t forthcoming with the information, Jack breaks down and asks what Rose expected him to do, as he saw no gain in revealing the real person he was to Rose.
We also find out that Rose hasn’t been honest either. She had been put into Jack’s life as a spy for the Patriots. But, after spending time and getting to know Jack, she ended up falling in love with him. Rose, much like other characters, has multiple identities, the spy chosen to make Jack fall in love with her, and the girlfriend who genuinely cares for Jack.
After Solidus uncovers Raiden’s past, Ocelot tells Jack that he is in the memory of Shadow Moses, again pointing to the first game and recognizing the echoes we are still hearing from it.
Once Jack is released from his shackles, the player is able to notice some different things immediately. In-game, if you were to bring up the map, it typically shows you where you are in the Big Shell, as well as other pertinent information regarding your mission. But, if you look at the map on this stage, you see something completely different. What you see is the World Turtle. A World Turtle is an entity that has a ton of mystery surrounding it. It was included in Eastern religions, like Hinduism and Chinese mythology, but also in indigenous America. What Kojima is showing us here is that Raiden isn’t just in the middle of Arsenal Gear, but he is at the epicenter of his creation. Somewhere along the line from being moved from the Big Shell to Arsenal, Raiden ended up in a strange area where the entire Metal Gear universe was created. This can also be seen as we work our way toward Solid Snake. At this point, Raiden is nude, with no gear, and extremely vulnerable. Much like when we are born, Raiden is naked, again hammering the point that he is close to his creation. As you make your way through the different corridors, you see that the new stages are actually named after the digestive tract found inside the human body. This is also where you get a glimpse into what Emma’s worm cluster was able to accomplish.
Your support team is acting very strange. Colonel keeps calling you and telling you things that don’t seem to make too much sense, but if you look at them closely, they are actually things tied to previous Metal Gear games. The Colonel tells you to turn off your console, which is a trick used in the first Metal Gear game for MSX. This is mixed in with the names of the stops of the train line that Kojima would take to work every day, which was also included in MGS1. As your support team acts stranger, it’s become clear that the walls of the game are slowly starting to crumble.
Quinn has lived for months inside the dumpster. He emerges one day and finds walking difficult due to laying in the dumpster for so long. When he gets a glimpse of himself, he finds himself unable to recognize the person he sees, but he isn’t surprised. Just like Raiden, Quinn has been reborn. He contacts Paul Auster, who informs him that the check has bounced and Quinn has been wasting his time. Someone named Peter Stillman killed himself by jumping off a bridge two months prior, and Auster is convinced it was the Peter Stillman that had employed Quinn. Quinn calls Virginia but gets no answer.
Quinn returns to his old apartment but finds that none of his old stuff is there. As he gets himself some food and smokes a cigarette, he is confronted by a woman who tells him that he no longer lives there and that it is now her apartment.
With nowhere else to go, Quinn goes back to the Stillman residence. When he arrives, he sees that every door inside is unlocked. Every room is identical; each of them is empty and has nothing inside but white walls. Quinn strips and throws all of his belongings save for his notebook and pen out of a window.
Quinn begins to ponder different things about his life. After he goes to sleep, he is greeted with a plate of food that he dines on before writing. He thinks about the Mets, particularly Mookie Wilson, whose real name isn’t Mookie, but William. He also realizes that he shares the same initials as Don Quixote, just like Henry Dark shared Humpty Dumpty’s. As Quinn begins to write more and more, he begins to remember more and more. His days begin to shift, and the dark begins to start lasting longer than the light. This ties into how much of his red notebook he has left. Quinn gets near the end of his notebook and suddenly realizes that he can recall every single event of his life, even his birth, and he regrets not being able to write that down. He regrets using so much of the notebook on the Stillman case because, in the grand scheme of things, it was nowhere near as important as the writing that came after it. The last sentence written is: What will happen when there are no more pages in the red notebook?
Paul Auster eventually goes looking for Quinn, but Quinn has disappeared. Instead, inside the Stillman household, he finds the red notebook, and eventually gives it to “The Author”. The Author then apologizes for any inaccuracies and then states that Paul Auster acted badly and to keep our thoughts with Daniel Quinn.
Before we start pulling back the boards and deciphering what this ending means, it’s probably a good idea to also include the ending to Metal Gear Solid 2.
Raiden is able to infiltrate the innards of Arsenal Gear with the help of Solid Snake. After battling through a wave of soldiers and Metal Gear Rays, a count of twenty-five, Raiden suddenly gives up. In a very anti-climatic ending to the Metal Gear fight, Raiden lowers his weapon and admits defeat. The only thing that saves him is Olga/Cyborg Ninja, who informs Raiden that if he dies, her child also dies. Olga was pregnant during the Tanker incident, and this is when it’s revealed that Raiden is tied to her fate. If he fails, the Patriots will kill her baby. Before Solidus can take out Raiden and Snake, Ocelot then drops a bomb. The entire event, from the tanker being sunk two years earlier to every single thing that has happened up to that point, was the doing of the Patriots. They set up the entire fiasco so that they could execute what they call the S3 plan, or the Solid Snake Simulation. After the disaster on Shadow Moses Island, the Patriots were concerned about the information regarding the incident leaking out to the public. Not just that, but they were amazed that Solid Snake, a lone soldier, was able to get as far as he did on pure determination. In order to harness that trait, they set up the tanker and the Big Shell so that they could see if Raiden could make it through the exercise. The only thing that wasn’t taken into account was the presence of the real Solid Snake. He was never supposed to be involved. Now that they had that information, they no longer needed Raiden or Solidus. Ocelot also explains to Fortune the technology behind her inability to die. Throughout the entire game, Fortune is unable to be hit by bullets, and she renders explosive devices near her useless. Her “luck” was developed by the Patriots as well, which means that all of her torment was orchestrated just so they could put Raiden through the test of the S3 plan. This is proven to be true after Ocelot shoots Fortune, but misses her heart, as it’s on her right side rather than her left.
When Ocelot attempts to kill them all with a barrage of missiles, Fortune is able to blow back the projectiles even without the technology of the Patriots, showing that even with the circumstances changing, Fortune is able to hold on to her “power” before her end. When Ocelot attempts to fire off another wave, he is then taken over by Liquid Snake, who is brought to life after Ocelot gets one last look at Solid Snake.
Liquid admits that he leaked the information to Snake, because of his “need” for him. Liquid states that Arsenal is on its way into the New York Harbor, headed for destruction. He then pilots the Ray into the ocean, where Solid Snake follows along, continuing their everlasting chase.
After Arsenal crashes, Solidus stands up and realizes they are on top of the Federal Building. He asks if Raiden knows the date, which is actually April 30th. George Washington took office that day, in 1789, signaling the beginning of the United States of America. Solidus had intended to free the country from the Patriots’ rule on that day to signify the rise of the true Sons of the Patriots.
Raiden’s support team makes one last call to him. This is where one of the most memorable dialogues of the game, if not the entire gaming industry, takes place. The “colonel” explains to Raiden that what they are isn’t considered human. They are a consciousness that has formed in the federal government since the beginning of the country. GW wasn’t the only AI created, there are others, and that is who is speaking to Raiden at this moment. Their biggest fear is the digital age, because while civilization during previous eras was able to cull and form the information that would be passed down to later generations, they feel that the way the current world works makes that act impossible. The amount of data that we have created in the short time of having access to the internet had alarmed them so much that they decided that they needed to create a context for our information. The AI uses our own actions to provide proof that they are needed. Their main contention is how we as humans treat “truth” in the modern age. Because we have so much information and little “context” to wade through it, we find ourselves discovering our own “truths” rather than the ultimate, objective truth. In order to reinforce this belief system, we create echo chambers in which we filter out inconvenient truths. Much like Raiden and Daniel Quinn ran from their own past at the beginning of the book and the game, we as individuals run from our own truths every day. We do that by trolling people on Twitter who we don’t agree with. We do this by spreading misinformation online. We do this by disregarding others’ opinions because of the way they vote. In order for us to stop, the Patriots decide that they will be the ones who will wade through the mess of information we have created and produce the knowledge we need to grow.
Remember, this was a game released in the early 2000s, well before events like the Trump presidency and Edward Snowden/NSA debacle. I always find it amazing how Kojima was able to see the writing on the wall from so early on in our perpetual lives online. The statement made by the AI from MGS2 that was the most frightening came to fruition. I think that is one of the scariest aspects of the game.
The AI then explains that the S3 plan doesn’t stand for Solid Snake Simulation, but Selection for Societal Sanity. Their ultimate goal isn’t to create one super soldier to compete with Solid Snake but to create circumstances that can mold anyone into anything they want. By choosing and creating the reality that Raiden found himself inside of, they were able to manipulate him to do everything they wanted him to do. This includes taking out Solidus Snake. If Raiden chooses to give up and allow Solidus to win, Olga’s child dies with him. This gives the player and Raiden an incentive to continue.
After an intense battle atop Arsenal, Raiden is able to strike down Solidus. His “father” falls off the roof of the Federal Building and looks up at the statue of George Washington that sits in front, gazing upon his hero as his life drains out.
Solid Snake, the real Solid Snake, then confronts Raiden. He explains that understanding what happened that day isn’t important. What is really important is how Raiden processes the event and how he passes on the information he learned. It is here that Raiden sees the dog tags that had been supplied at the beginning of the Big Shell mission. When we enter our own name into the game, it displays it here on the dog tags, and when Snake asks Raiden if it’s someone he knows, Raiden says no, and then throws the tags away, discarding his old identity and taking his own as Jack/Raiden. Jack is then able to meet Rose, the real Rose, who again asks if Jack knows what day it is. Jack finally remembers that it is the anniversary of the day they first met. Raiden and Rose walk off, finally accepting their new identities in life.
Finding the Meaning: The Ending to Both Explained
Daniel Quinn and Raiden are two fictional characters. One is from a video game, and one is from a novel. They both are put into harrowing situations by their creators, which forms their initial identity that we as an audience get to see. Both are scarred from their past experiences, with Jack being traumatized by his childhood on the battlefield, while Daniel Quinn cannot cope with the loss of his young child. They both choose to ignore their past and move on with their lives by not remembering what happened to them. Daniel Quinn creates a different pen name and lives a simple existence using the skills he learned from his previous life to make a living as a mystery writer. Jack the Ripper uses the skills he learned on the battlefield to excel in the army’s virtual environments to train him for fieldwork.
We must remember the distinction that these are FICTIONAL characters. One was created by Paul Auster, and one was created by Hideo Kojima. The reason that Daniel Quinn’s initials are DQ is he is Paul Auster’s representation of Don Quixote. The reason that Raiden’s name is Raiden is that he is named after the Mitsubishi J2M, a Japanese WWII-era fighter jet that was nicknamed “Jack” by allied troops. Raiden is a representation for the weapons and technology we develop for battle. Daniel Quinn begins his “life” as a metaphor for Don Quixote, while Raiden is a metaphor for a weapon made by the government. The reason they both had troubled pasts was that the author and the game developer who made them included that in their past. Their pasts were “edited” and “manipulated” to fit a context that would make us understand what both men were trying to say about the world around them through their work.
Daniel Quinn is told about a man named Paul Auster, who is the only person who can solve Peter Stillman’s problem. Raiden has the truth behind the Patriots, the people behind his creation, slowly laid out as the game progresses, a group who also possess the ability to assist Raiden in his mission. They are both introduced to their creators and are informed that they are the only ones who can solve a particular problem.
Both Daniel Quinn and Raiden encounter recurring themes of whiteness. Daniel Quinn dreams of shooting a white wall and then has Peter Stillman explain the meaning behind Henry Dark being named after Humpty Dumpty. Both visions are used to show a disruption of whiteness. Quinn shooting the wall leaves a hole inside of it that makes the wall “no longer white”. Humpty Dumpty destroys himself by falling off the wall. He also is “no longer white”. Raiden’s hair is platinum blonde and his skin is pale. During the first part of the game, when you are Solid Snake, your death is greeted by a black screen before you see the same Game Over message from the first Metal Gear. But, when you begin playing as Raiden, your death is met with a white screen, and his Game Over screen displays different stats from the game while also stating Mission Failed. Raiden’s “father”, George Sears/Solidus Snake, also has white hair. Raiden’s name as a child was White Devil as well as Jack the Ripper. Jack disavows these names as he discovers his own identity, or like Quinn, he is disrupting his whiteness.
What whiteness represents is blankness. A blank page, or as Peter Stillman stated, a white egg, is nothing more than a place where ideas can flourish. We also see this with Daniel Quinn’s theory on “becoming Paul Auster”. Quinn envisions his mind as a blank page, and that makes it easier to slip into the Paul Auster persona. There is hope and optimism when it comes to having something blank to work with because you can put down whatever you want. The problem in both works is that Quinn and Raiden both feel disjointed by their blank pasts. Raiden’s past keeps him from developing a real relationship with his girlfriend Rose. Quinn’s past keeps him from pursuing his passion for literary fiction and making “serious” work, as well as getting past the pain of losing his family. The things that are missing from both men prevent them from reaching their full potential.
These two men also meet their “creators”. Daniel Quinn meets Paul Auster, who explains what is going on around him. He is a character in a novel, which is based on Don Quixote. Once Daniel Quinn hears about Paul Auster’s novel, he has his entire life crash around him. He feels himself change into someone else, someone he doesn’t recognize. The same happens with Raiden. He meets an artificial intelligence who explains to him the reason behind the mission he is on. Raiden is informed he is “nothing but a weapon” and doesn’t have a true self. Much like Auster, who is the writer of City of Glass, an AI does dictate the actions of MGS2 in a literal sense. All video games do. AI is what controls the environment you interact with inside of games. Just like the writer Quinn meets, the artificial intelligence Raiden talks with shows him the true fakeness of the world around him. Raiden is nothing more than a character in a video game, on a mission to kill everyone in his path.
This also explains the reasons why Daniel Quinn likes the Mets and the reason why William Wilson is named after Mookie. These are traits from the real Paul Auster. They were things included in the book because they were pieces of Paul’s life that he could repurpose for his work, something all authors do in one form or another. Kojima does the same thing with the inclusion of the rail line stops and the relationship with Rose. These are elements of real life that leak into the works of fiction both were creating at the time. The reason that the characters can’t explain these elements in their reality is because it’s from real life, not the world that was created around Raiden and Quinn.
The fact that one man is a character in a book and the other is one from a video game is never directly said because that isn’t how Don Quixote is written. Don Quixote, through the entire novel, no matter how fantastical and insane it gets, is presented to the reader as complete fact, first derived from an archive and then from Benengeli. MGS2 and City of Glass are presented in similar fashions. They are both “retellings”, as MGS2 is a retelling of the first Metal Gear Solid, and City of Glass is Paul Auster’s retelling of the contents of the red notebook that Daniel Quinn writes before he disappears. This is the reason why the ending of City of Glass presents the story as if it’s Paul Auster finding the notebook and presenting it to “The Author”, who then relays the information to us. It’s the same reason why Raiden meets Rose after the events of the Big Shell. It is put there to make us as readers question the “context” of the story we just finished. Both pieces of fiction are presented as something else at the beginning of our journey, and when that presentation is flipped on us, we still have to accept it, even though the context and the meaning has changed, just like in real life.
We see examples of this throughout the book and the game. The reason that Quinn’s first conversation with Peter Stillman lasts the entire day without Quinn’s knowledge is because he is inside of a novel, and authors use time lapses of that ilk in order to advance their plots and move the action along, ensuring the reader doesn’t become bored. The reason that Raiden is able to find every type of weapon he can dream of inside of a crude oil cleanup facility is because he is in a video game, one shaped after Metal Gear Solid 1, which also supplied its hero with ample ammunition to complete the task at hand. The characters are able to recognize the oddness of their plight while also continuing to advance forward because they are slaves to their circumstances up until the end of the book and the video game.
The notebook is significant because the point where Quinn begins to write the ending is the point where he takes control of his own story. Once Daniel Quinn writes his own ending he becomes so enlightened that he sees his own “birth”, which is impossible in our reality. The only reason Quinn is able to accomplish this is that he is a fictional character in a book, and his birth is nothing more than Paul Auster creating him inside of his head. Once Daniel Quinn becomes aware of that, he can escape the book and no longer be a character under the control of the writer, Paul Auster. He becomes his own person and leaves us to ponder what happened to him. The same thing happens with Raiden. He finds the dog tags around his neck, displaying the name of the player, most likely our own name imprinted on him, and he casts this aside as he finds Rose and they both decide to attempt to live with one another. The real versions of each other as well, not one constructed by Hideo Kojima, or us for that matter.
The two characters are victims of circumstance. Raiden is created to send us through different emotions as players while we discover what is really going on behind the Big Shell. Daniel Quinn was created so that we could navigate the tropes of the mystery novel and look at how the significance of “literature” can change based on the context and information given. Not just that, but also, if the meaning and context of words can change over time, what is the true significance of words at all?
The truth is, we supply context and meaning. We supply our own context to things like music and art. We supply context to events in our own lives. Much like Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, we are the ones who look back on our lives and find meaning in the small moments. It’s we who label these elements in our lives for ourselves because we are the only ones who know the exact context of how we see things. No one else can. It doesn’t matter if words and the significance of literature change. We are subject to many things completely out of our control. The only thing we can do is do our best to control those elements ourselves. We still must find a way to write our own ending, even if the circumstances against that seem insurmountable.
Ultimately, we all pass on. No one lives forever. The only thing that really matters is the information we find significant and the context we create. Those are the things we end up passing on to our children. We pass on life lessons to help strengthen and enlighten them. We make sure they don’t make the same mistakes we did. We make sure they are cared for and set up for success. We do our best to control their environment. And one day, as sad as it sounds, they too will pass on. The only thing that will remain of us all is the memory we create. Essentially, we all will turn into information, a story passed down like the grandparents and great-grandparents we hear about today. That’s why it’s so important to choose the right information to pass on.
That’s what Paul Auster and Hideo Kojima are saying. It’s up to us to provide our own context and meaning to our lives, and once that happens, that’s the information that you want to pass down to your loved ones. Once our lives are over, all the events that took place no longer matter. That change happens immediately. We turn into something else. We turn into someone people talk about in the past tense rather than the present tense. But, we can still control how people talk about us. We can still control the legacy we have by living our lives to the fullest. It doesn’t matter if our circumstances prevent us, we still need to find a way to persevere, for our own sake.
While Paul Auster’s book was always regarded as a great piece of postmodern fiction, MGS2 suffered a different fate. At the time, lots of gamers felt ripped off by the game after finishing it. Players didn’t want a preachy visual novel, they wanted to blow stuff up and save the world. Being told that their actions were pointless and somehow counter-productive turned off a large amount of the audience, so much so that the series completely shifted after MGS2. People didn’t get it at the time. They couldn’t see the reasoning behind making an action game become a statement on the digital age and how we should approach so many things becoming out of our control. But, much like some of the themes of City of Glass, over the past twenty years since the game’s release have been favorable towards the meaning behind the game and the steps taken to ensure that the player was given a completely new experience. The context has once again changed.
Those leaps of faith aren’t taken anymore. The gaming industry largely uses a very formulaic approach to AAA, big-budget games. Open world, big graphical time sinks are a way for companies to get players to pour hours into the same game for years, and this has completely killed the chance of anything like Metal Gear Solid 2 being done ever again. Game companies need to maximize profits to cover the huge R&D costs that go into making newer games look as good as they do. Turning a profit is difficult. It’s a sign of the times, chiefly due to the attitudes that gamers had in the 2000s. People wanted something to throw on with friends and mindlessly mash buttons together. Games like Guitar Hero and FPS shooters began to become the norm, largely due to the social aspects around them. This made game companies take notice. The public can do without a deep novel hidden inside of a video game.
I think people are just so used to those bubbles that the AI talked about at the end of the game. Those bubbles have been forming for years on the internet, and now that we as people perpetually live in online spaces, the bubbles have turned into fortresses. It’s hard confronting the changing landscape around us. We have so much information at our fingertips, but so much time is spent digging through it all that you sometimes question if you are going crazy. It’s hard to see those aspects of our lives.
But, we don’t have to be slaves to it. It doesn’t matter how big of a presence our “online” personas become. Life is about what you make of it. Even if the beginning of our books were horrible, there’s still time to make sure you can write your own ending. Because once our time is up, and it’s all said and done, none of the trivial stuff will matter at all. The only thing that will remain is the red notebook we leave behind for someone else to read. You have to make sure that what you write down inside of it is important to you, otherwise, you’re just wasting your time, writing about other people’s lives.
