June 21, 2024
Noted Cult Classic Indie Video Game Deadly Premonition
Note: I posted this on cohost first and don't usually crosspost, but I always intended it for here. Also, while I said I didn't want to just post about plural stuff here all the time, you better believe I did it this month, because life simply finds a way to make me post about plural stuff.
For the many disappointments and crimes of its creator and its sequel, I still really like Deadly Premonition. Lately, I've had the pleasure of watching multiple people streaming it, experiencing the story either partly or entirely for the first time. I love that shit because it's a complex mystery story with a sense of humor that is often truly bizarre, often wearing the clothes of something that's only accidentally funny, but tends to surprise people with its quality of writing. Also it's got some extremely painful gameplay and I get to enjoy the suffering of people I like, but that's not the point today.
Francis York Morgan was always a standout protagonist and extremely popular for a reason. These days, the success of things like Dungeon Meshi proves that the kids yearn for extremely autistic protagonists, but we wanted them in 2010, too. We just didn't KNOW we wanted them. Or at least I didn't. This was also my first time really seeing the story of the game since my own self-awakenings, which forced me to think about how York is one of gaming's extremely small number of realistically plural protagonists. He's talking to his headmate, named Zach, all game!
Of course, commentators of the time, including myself, thought of it as such a quirky detail! He's talking to the player, they said. Now, to be clear they were correct about that, but in the literal text, he's talking to his alter, his 'only friend,' and lacks in the kind of mindset that shames one out of just doing it out loud when other people around. He proactively asks others not to ask about the matter. When he does open up, the story is "I experienced something really fucked up and traumatic and this guy is always with me since then." It's really straightforward, and I was just so ignorant at the time that I didn't understand that it was probably written with at least some research. If my-- our-- guess is correct, then we were probably already an 'us' at the time. If we'd been aware, then the way the character was understood and covered at the time would have been very funny to us. It's certainly funny, now! But it's funny in the way you look back at your own youthful misapprehensions.
The player views York and Zach, partly from the outside and partly from within. One-sided conversations about nothing in particular. Honestly? There's an accuracy to that. Things that are usually described as a "voice" are, for me at least, more accurately called "feelings" or "thoughts." Rhetorical questions are good for establishing an expectation and possibility for those responses to manifest. Some of the comments now read as joking or sarcasm to me, where before they didn't. Otherwise, it might be that York's understanding of the situation is simply different from my own.
Of course, that brings me to the very real frustration of knowing this all probably comes from the outside. By and for outsiders, by and large. That's not a crime, but it makes me wonder how much that I like is coincidence and how much it matters. I haven't played the sequel and kind of don't care with how the director of the game kinda started acting about various things over time, and I'll never be able to know the minds of, realistically, dozens of strangers. That's fine. It's annoying but it's art. The desire to create is actually a wonderful thing to get out of any situation, and I've gained plenty from thinking about Deadly Premonition too much like it was 2010 again.
Lately, I've sometimes run back through some absurd piece of media that I thought was probably completely wrong about this stuff, only to find it was... if not completely relatable, then at least it wasn't wrong in the normal ways. Diavolo in Jojos actually feels even worse now but I still recognize that Hirohiko Araki heard about DID and just thought it was so cool dude. The system in the one Ace Attorney game with the clown porn character are actually alright. Most media I've seen is still godawful about it, and even a lot of the better stuff is coming from an outside view, but I have a keen interest now, specifically because I actually think it's really hard. Before awareness, I couldn't even really grasp the accounts of lived experiences. Passing to the other side, I get it. I can't always really explain how this feels. You just have to trust people when they say how their life is, and that's true no matter who they are.
Anyway I watched the scene where York explains the situation and genuinely got misty-eyed what's up.