#90 Mon (9/19/22) - [OW] passivity and interactivity in games and media

 I have been increasingly moving to a passive interaction principally with two or three objects;

1) Assassin's Creed - Origins

2) The Rings of Power

3) House of the Dragon, to a lesser extent

The first is a long, sprawling epic adventure game, set in Egypt of 48BC, Ptolemy and Cleopatra are NPCs.  There are many things to do, that fall into several categories; main story-line, side quests, leveling up, exploring an open world, crafting. I find these kinds of games very appealing (Mad Max, AC Odyssey, AC Black Flag, GTA, Shadow over Mordor) all had these elements.  Basically an endless To Do list with a map full of icons to check off, a fully described progression tree with a known end point, (Level 99).  It is possible to maximize or optimize your character, either in basic terms, (full health bar and all of the ability points) or in sophisticated terms (gear load outs with multipliers that produce OP characters).  I tend to be satisfied with just having completed the main story 100% and attained the 99th Level in terms of character XP.  I usually give up before completing all of the side quests or solving all of the puzzles, but probably 85-95%.

Rings of Power is a tv drama covering much of the material left out of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, from the appendices of those works.  It is densely constructed such that there are explainer videos unpacking the lore backgrounded in each episode (only 4 so far out of 8 total in Season 1).  I am finding the drama itself to be a bit tedious, as it is setting up all of the people and places (usually the first act world-building is the most exciting part of books for me and the third act business leading to the climax I find repetitious and tiresome), but in this series, since I already know about elves, dwarves and hobbits, the world building feels lackluster at best and underserved by some bad dialogue and writing.  They are leaning into keeping things mysterious to build a sense of suspense and investment in the character driven stories. (Is that Sauron? Is he Sauron?) I have been reading some of the appendices but they are vague about this period and written more like history texts or encyclopedia entries than epic dramas.

House of the Dragon is the prequel to Game of Thrones, and has much better writing, acting, casting, dialogue and tempo.  It is moving along crisply with great characterizations, meaningful motivations and definite dramatic tensions.  However, the lore seems distinctly remaining in the background, since I do not know the source material, if there even is any.

However, I notice that my enjoyment of reading and my encyclopedic endeavors are distinctly lacking now that I can play a never-ending game (by this I mean a game in which each goal attained spawns a new set of linked goals) where I fight bad guys across ancient Egypt and explore tombs or watch elves and dwarves and dragons on tv.  

My reading has now condensed to just:

1) Circe by Madeline Miller (about 2/3rds of the way through and slowing)

for about 30 mins a night before bed.  Books that I read in this way tend to lose their impact on me and my enjoyment drops as the time taken to finish seems to extend.  I read Hiddensee like this for a bit, then just decided to actually read it and it went much faster/better.

I feel that I am becoming passive in my consumption of RoP, although there is a white-hot stupid controversy in the online fandoms (Is Galadriel a Mary Sue?, Is Rings of Power Amazon's Epic FAIL?).  This helps to give an added dimension to the evaluative process. I like to critique arguments, especially bad faith ones, which these seem to be, and yet some of the couched language about bad writing seems to ring true. It did introduce me to the "I don't like the depiction of Numenor because they chose a blue color palette to mirror ancient Greece instead of burnt umber, which I prefer for some reason" type of reasoned argument.  I shouuld really be enjoying this experience, because of the richness and depth of the lore by a true master, but actually, I find the fan made explainer videos to be much more in touch with (geeked out on) the lore than the show itself which seems to relegate it to background and foreground the mediocre acting, in fear of alienating viewers with obvious nerdom.

The interactive nature of the AC-O game makes it feel that I am engaged with vital actions and events, but actually I'm just going through motions with nothing really at stake. You cannot make any mistakes or wrong choices, the quests are on rails and can only be done in one order, and there is no perma-death. Failing a mission just means do it over again. I'm playing on normal difficulty and only have died about 5 times. With nothing at stake and no punishment, it can be a glorious time waster with nothing really to show for it, that expands to fill all the empty hours.

I think bringing an intellectual or emotional involvement is necessary for an activity (like media consumption) to feel fulfilling and rewarding. I got MUCH more out of reading The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye than I did from seeing the movie. The Origins game led me on a side quest to learn more about Sphinxes, which do not really figure in the game at all.  Circe is getting me to read more about the Odyssey. RoP is getting me to look at the LotR appendices that I haven't looked at since I was a teenager.