Nature in a Video Game

For my major paper in my Ecocriticism class, I have narrowed down my possible topics to be a focus on one game (and possibly its supporting material) and it's interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. I'm looking at either Final Fantasy VII or Pokemon (Red/Blue/Yellow).

I think it would be a lot of fun and really interesting (and difficult) to work on Final Fantasy VII. I think the way nature is portrayed/interacted with in that game is much more complex than it is in Pokemon. This makes it more interesting, but also less likely that I could actually explore it in any depth in a ten-or-so page paper. Not to mention, I don't have the time to play through the game again, and despite beating it twice, there's still a lot I don't know or understand. After reading (read: skimming) Ents, Elves and Eriador, I think it would be possible and interesting to write a book on it. I feel like a book would be more feasible than an article at this point.

Pokemon, on the other hand, isn't quite as complex, but does seem to have an interesting and unique take on humanity's relationship with nature, particularly in relations with animals. I'm not sure what I would say right now, but I know that, looking at the game through a ecocritic-lens, I'm going to come down on the side of the game reinforcing poor cultural considerations of nature. There's definitely a man-over-nature aspect to the series that wouldn't allow me to approve of it as an ecocritic.

An ecocritic (which I have to pretend to be for the paper) would disapprove of the game's domination of the 'wild' by people. Nature is only valuable based on its usefulness. Tall grasses and the like are valuable because they allow the trainer to capture new pokemon or force their pokemon to fight and become stronger. There is definitely a "dog-fighting" type ethic to this game, which was touched on in the live-action Pokemon movie spoof trailer. However, despite the fact that the character is participating in this domination over animals for his own ends, there are still criminals, Team Rocket, whose cruelty to pokemon must be stopped. So one question I would need to explore in my paper is where the line is drawn.

The TV show could be useful for a backstory to the game, with a character treating and interacting with pokemon in a certain way. The game implies that your character has the same kind-heartedness that Ash does in the show, but there is no ostensible proof of this. Other characters in the game comment that your pokemon like you no matter what you do. The closest there is to a guide for how you are treating your pokemon is the expressions of Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow, and even then, they are pretty much guaranteed to improve as long as you keep Pikachu in your party, and usually conscious. The importance of the feelings of your pokemon became more important in later series, but the fact still remains that the game implies that pokemon (read: animals) are best off under the protection and control of a person (or really, a ten-year-old kid).

While I still have plenty of questions on how I'm going to write this paper, at this point, I've learned that if I don't have questions, my paper will probably not be very good.

All the best to you and your,

-TES

PS. I know, I'm a huge dork, but you should know that already.

Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Environment

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is "Ecocriticism." I honestly didn't have the slightest idea of what to expect from the course other than that I would be expected to read Walden at some point (and we have). I won't lie, the first few weeks of the course were pretty unexciting for me. However, recently we began working on the role of apocalypse narratives in ecocriticism.

Unsurprisingly, I deeply enjoyed reading a speculative fiction book on the apocalypse. The example of apocalypse we used for the course was Margret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and complexity of the apocalypse envisioned in the novel. This apocalypse is not brought about by a singular event, occurance, or discovery, but instead, a chain of interrelated causes, varying from proliferation of science and technology, consumerism, triviality of society, and more.

In class, our professor wanted to try to pin down the biggest causes of the apocalypse Atwood envisioned. Quite frankly, I thought it was impossible, everything was related. Obsession with sex leads to desire for health products to maintain youth. These people provide a willing market for scientific corporations to exploit. The money they bring in leads to the power to advance technology, but also breeds intense competition between corporations, leading to acts of terrorism (often bio-terrorism). Companies gain technological advancements that would allow them to cure disease, but they dare not allow the product to be perfect, because if it was, they would destroy their own market. Economy drives the engine of a vicious cycle.

Another upcoming assignment for the course was to pick any book dealing with ecocriticsm and read it independently, providing a report to the class on the new view we discovered. A search in the library using simply the term ecocriticism linked me to numerous books with mostly uninteresting titles. One caught my eye though: Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien. Jackpot.

While mostly ignored recently, my interest and fascination for fantasy and science fiction had begun resurfacing as a legitimate area of inquiry for my studies when I began Oryx and Crake. Finding a book on the environmental vision of Tolkien solidified the occasional wandering thoughts I'd been having about the genre. In particular, I began thinking of how much science fiction and fantasy (a little more so the latter than the former) depicts nature as a friendly, benign force that we must appreciate and embrace. Additionally, kids movies and stories seem to often be rich in environmental propaganda (if you'll forgive the term).

Think Fern Gully and Peter Pan. In both, man and technology are to a greater or lesser degree, evil, and must be defeated. In The Chronicles of Narnia, the preservation of the natural world is tantamount, with God/Jesus taking the shape of a lion and bestowing sentient life on animals as well as tree and water spirits (not to mention interesting in the blend of Christianity and paganism).

In Final Fantasy VII, you fight to save the world, first from the economic and technological powers that would seek to suck the world dry of all its value, and then from an alien/psychotic who seeks to destroy the world. At the end, the power of Holy is not enough to stop the destruction of the earth by itself, but the Lifestream, an embodiment of the natural world (as glowing green tendrils, in case the connection wasn't clear enough) intervenes, helping Holy to stop the apocalypse and simultaneously overrunning the largest city with green plant-growth.

I'm finding the possibilities for this subject that I was grudging to engage in very exciting (and a little overwhelming). For the end of the semester, I have to write a sizable research paper on some topic within the field. Before I was worried about what I could possibly write that wouldn't bore me to tears. Now I'm worried that I will struggle to define a topic that I can write only ten to fifteen pages on.