Comments on: Fetishization of Insanity

By: Rhue

Rhue — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 07:54:06 +0000

The only game I can think of that’s ever handled an illness well is Alan Wake. Throughout the narrative you get a feel for the main character’s severe depression and the ways it’s affected his life and the lives of his loved ones. Through flashbacks we get glimpses of him at his best and at his worst, and we see how much stress and suffering his wife has gone through in trying to take care of him and get him to agree to psychiatric help.

Halfway through the game we’re confronted with the possibility that most of the game is a schizophrenic escape fantasy. In an astoundingly fantastic piece of gameplay and story synchronicity, when the fantastical setting starts to seep back into the story, the player is as relieved to step into the action as Wake is to see justification that he really isn’t crazy. (Or is he?) The “save the girl from the darkness” fantasy is so much easier to cope with, for both the player and the character, than coping with a debilitating mental illness and a ruined career and relationship. You get an inkling of how easy it would be to get lost in that kind of elaborate fantasy while also getting a feel for the kind of damage something like that can cause for one’s friends and family.

I can’t think of a AAA game that’s dealt with a mental illness with anywhere near as much care and subtlety.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 06:15:09 +0000

I’m not sure, but the fetishization of insanity may has something to do with the upcoming/rising of the mad scientist-character.

By: Dan Stout

Dan Stout — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 23:19:41 +0000

Great points, Krystian.

I think that mental illness is often used as a short hand to show that someone is an “other”. This many be a superficial Tiny Tina-like character, or a much more thorough examination of the illness and its effects (like the mentally ill Robin Williams in The Fisher King).

Like most things, how much depth is to found is a direct result of how hard the writer is willing to work at bringing that character to life.

Thanks for the post– it got me thinking about the topic enough that I wrote about it on my own blog as well.

By: MisterT

MisterT — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 11:24:56 +0000

So true… This reminds me of those many movies in which the twist is that someone is insane. The audience seem to like such surprising twist but I prefer any conventional contructed ending to that kind of lazy writing. This includes also fanatics – which seem to come into fashion after 9-11 and pretty much work the same way as the classic hollywood lunatic.

Six Feet Under has a bipolar character for some episodes which was portrayed pretty accurately. United States Of Tara is way exaggerated for artistic purposes as a way uses this to condense the situation to make it accessable via tv. Other than that I have hardly seen any disorders used as plot devices more than just taking some kinky behavior nuggets and throwing it into the mix.

Sometimes I wonder whether writers live in some parallel universe never to get in contact to real disorders or whether they have just depressions themselves and therefore avoid getting anywhere where it could hurt. Or maybe refusing to get into the dark places of their creative minds to wonder what other reasons there could be for people turning “evil” than insanity or fanatism.