Below, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom in the past
between primary and secondary worlds. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and I
am always grateful for your company. All right, welcome back, And before
I get any further, I want to make sure that it takes some time
to thank all of my patrons, because I don't think I did that last
time. My patrons really make this possible by giving me the financial support that
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leaving me a five star review with comments. Now, if you could all
go and do that, that would be very helpful. Now. As I
mentioned in the last episode, my current series on beay Wolf is on hold
as I wrap up this semester and finish getting things ready for the upcoming Lewis
Study, which by the way, is now up to fifty eight participants.
But I still felt like sharing some off the cuff thoughts with you right now.
I've been watching the new Fallout series on Amazon and I have some thoughts
now. As a disclaimer, if you're not familiar with the Fallout franchise.
I am not necessarily suggesting that you absolutely need to or should go and watch
the show. I fully recognize that it has some content that many people might
understandably considered to be highly objectionable. For example, it is very violent.
Now I would say, it's like over the top kind of can be violent
to the extent that is almost cartoonish at times. And I mean, as
far as fake violence goes, it really doesn't bother me all that much.
But I don't know. Maybe I'm just desensitized by this point. I don't
know. Also, there is a good bit of profanity, and from what
I've seen so far, I think two scenes with some rather unnecessary a nudity,
although one of those in particular is not at all what I would consider
a sexualized context, and the other, which is actually in the first episode,
can be predicted and skipped easily enough. So with all that being said,
I would be sympathetic to someone who said that they cannot, in good
conscience enjoy the show, and you likely would not be impoverishing your life to
any significant degree if you decided to skip it. However, well, I
certainly would clean up certain elements of the show if I were in charge.
I don't find any of the content that it presents to incite anything particularly carnal
in me. But again, I mean, leave that up to your own
conscience, and it certainly is it something that I would be watching with my
kids at least anytime soon. Now, personally, I'm a big Fallout fan.
I'm into the franchise, and the show does a pretty good job of
capturing the world of Fallout now if you aren't familiar. Fallout began as a
video game series dating back into I believe ninety seven, and it continues up
to the present. The premise of this world of the story of the franchise
is that Cold War era fears of nuclear apocalypse finally came true in the year
twenty seventy seven, and so we give this fun retro futuristic setting of esthetics
from the nineteen fifties or so brought into the near future. In twenty seventy
seven, the so called Great War resulted in nuclear bombs detonating across the world,
leading to the utter destruction and radiation of society. However, many people
thrived and protected underground shelters known as vaults, which were designed to preserve civilization
and tell the surface could be recolonized hundreds of years later, and those who
do not make it to the vaults largely died, but the survivors form various
factions, bands, and proto governmental entities. Others mutated due to the radiation,
turning into zombie like ghoules, some of which kept their intellect and others
of which did not. Now nearly all the creatures on the surface mutated into
some monstrous new variation, leading to this rather interesting futuristic neo fantasy wasteland setting.
And overall, the world of Fallout is very dire and most people are
well very bad. As people have struggled to survive, we see the breakdown
of previously accepted moral and social norms that had bound society together. However,
there are these occasional glimmers of hope that goodess can still be found in the
most desolate of places. This is one theme of the show, as the
protagonist insists on the importance of the Golden Rule, even toward one of her
most particularly nihilistic temporary companions who had already mistreated her in some rather horrific ways.
And also, I mean at the beginning of the game Fallout three,
we actually get a Bible verse from Revelation, which shows that old wisdom still
has a role to play even in this what's reallyant this Healscape type setting.
And so why am I talking about all of this? Right? This is
primarily a literature podcast. Why am I talking about Fallout, this show,
this game. Well, for one, it's a fairly active force at the
moment, especially with the release of this new show, and I think that's
enough reason to talk about it a little bit. Also, I do think
that there's some wisdom to be found here. Now. Any franchise that's able
to carry and continue to gain attention for a significant amount of time, in
this case almost three decades has to have something more than mere entertainment value.
Now, maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I believe that things with real
staying power have to speak to us on some kind of deep level. Even
those who do not intentionally examine themselves are ultimately seeking something real. Of course,
the problem is that we often stop short of what reality actually is,
and then we mistake shadows for substance. And so that's where you know,
something like a game, movie and whatever, any kind of hobby, any
kind of interest can actually end up doing you harm if you kind of failed
to recognize that there is something more that it should be directing you toward.
However, if we recognize shadows as indicators of substance, then they consider a
useful role in connecting us in the world around us to the reality that we
all desire to participate in, as well as the negative reality that we want
to avoid. I believe that this is true of good books, and that's
a large driving force for this podcast. But I also believe that it's true
even of great story driven video games. Now I don't play many games anymore.
I did a lot in my youth, but I really just have more
important things going on right now. I mean, I don't mean to suggest
that you don't have important things going on if you are an adult and find
a responsible way to play games, just between family and work and other projects
and just things that take more of a leading role, and that you know,
I think should take more of a leading role. I simply don't have
that kind of time to, you know, invest in games. In fact,
I probably have not bought a new one for over a decade or so,
but I still like to occasionally return to something from years gone by,
and Fallout is a common go to, especially Three New Vegas, which is
rightly a fan favorite, and four Now. Of course, they are fun,
and one problem with taking something like a literary criticism lens to video games
is that the amusement factor can often cloud our judgment of the story, leading
us to see something is better than it really is simply because it's fun.
One criteria I like to use to determine whether we can at all bring a
game into a literary type conversation is to consider whether I would be interested in
reading a book that deals with the content of the game. If such a
book could be reasonably done well, then I argue that we can absolutely bring
such a game, such a story into conversation with literature, that it has
a place at that table. Now, some games have writing that far exceeds
contemporary books, and they can deal with ideas, themes, and scenarios that
are very much in tune with reality. Is in a secondary world sense.
The Fallout Law, in particular regarding the confusion, conspiracies and politics leading up
to the nuclear crisis, as well as the relationships that continue and are established
in the aftermath, deal with some interesting topics regarding the nature of society now
and what human nature and relations might look like when pressed into a place of
desperation. But I think that's all I want to say about that now,
because this is not really meant to be a deep dive of Fallout. As
I said, these are just some off the cuff thoughts. Now. If
that's something that you want me to delve into more, then let me know.
I would love to hear from you. And what are your thoughts on
Fallout or on the role of video games in general. Can they be brought
into conversations with literature or are they nothing more than distractions? Right? Are
they just amusement or can they serve a noble purpose? And whether you agree,
disagree, or you have some nuance to contribute to what I've said,
I would love to hear from you. You can DM me on Twitter,
email me at mythicmindpodcasts at gmail dot com, or my favorite option, you
can send me a short audio recording at speakpipe dot com slash Mythic Mind,
and I'll put that link in the show notes. If you reach out to
me, I'd be really happy to share and discuss your response on the show
and so again, let me know what you think about Fallout in particular or
story driven games in general. Send me a message or leave me a recording.
Oh, if you'd like for me to spend more time talking about some
pop culture things, whether shows, movies, video games, that sort of
thing, or if you'd rather just stick exclusively to books, then let me
know. I think that I will provide you with the best product simply by
doing the things that I find interesting. However, I very much value your
feedback. I want to make sure that I'm doing things that interest my regular
listeners. Well that's it for now. I hope to hear from you soon,
and I wish you many meaningful roads ahead. The music included in this
episode is owned by Bethesda, and it is not my intention to commit any
kind of copyright fraud. Thank you Bethesda for not suing me.