Dethronement of All Authors

“Art is subjective.” is a self-explanatory statement. Something that exists to communicate and receive feedback from the audience, even if said audience only consists of the creator themselves  obviously is dependent on the subject and not a problem which can be broken down and solved. It is just like saying. “Can opener opens cans.” No one disagrees with this in practice, otherwise we could not simply create or enjoy art. However, in theory, this is contested in the belief that art must be subjugated by an authority. Most people would not accept a censorship bureau, but rather; a subtler, more abstract type of authority.

The first important authority is the perceived general audience. Thinking their own biases, tastes, emotions are simply superior and universal, and the worthiest of consideration. There are certain reasons why such a thought might develop:

• They are exposed to a media which regularly caters to them, to the exclusion of most anything else. There isn’t much need for subjectivity when one can stay in a bubble.
• Popularity, high rankings, critical acclaim, sales numbers etc. Certainly there are common patterns in media, and some art have more appeal to higher number of people. There is nothing that proves universality here, and even if there was an art which was truly universally appealing, that would not diminish its subjectivity. Something less appealing but different would not be entirely less valuable, because it would come out from a different human being.
• Rarity, is perhaps even more effective. After all. only the truly worthy can experience true art, for true causes, not to satisfy the simple whims of a mere commoner, right? We decided this work is “cringe”, no one can sincerely enjoy it anymore. Also, popular things grow their fandom. Fandoms are bad, and everyone should feel bad about a work by mere association to a fandom.
• The worst of all, the politicization of aesthetics. Here, merely consuming art becomes an ideological battle, and thus there is hardly any room for plurality. Unsurprisingly, this enables rather reactionary ideologies.

The second authority is positivist art criticism. The words “subjective” and “objective” are often used in a loaded way, as extreme opposite ends. It posits that something is either entirely personal and impossible to articulate or must be able to be solved like a math question. It’s a fairly common opinion that humor and music is “too subjective” to be analyzed, but something such as game design is often treated as definitive. As said before, subjectivity does not imply absolute uniqueness. When creating art, an objective goal can be used in creating different experiences, such as certain filming techniques. Art can be analyzed in different ways, and certain analyses aren’t more authoritative because they refer to more certain, calculable properties. The very process of deciding which observations about a work of art is personal. Just as there is no finality in art, there is no final word in art critique and that doesn’t make any certain interpretation less valuable. Something can be personal and still be shared collectively.

The third important authority is the creator themselves, they are “authors” after all. The concept of Death of the Author is applied always knowingly or unknowingly at a certain level, as it is simply a corollary to the subjectivity of art. Limitations of that concept is being argued still today, but in the process of experiencing art, one is only concerned with visuals and sounds right there, the creator only exists in the art at that moment; this is not something contested. However, people still feel obliged to let their personal experience of art dictated by the creator for various reasons.

• “Canon” is supposed to supersede and control all interpretations. The story is reduced to a mere series of events, replacing any cultural context or personal connection with perceived approval from the author as the one and only legitimate source of validation. In particular, it’s often used to argue that a work is “not political” (i.e “not about things I don’t want to be reminded of.”), and invalidate all queer readings of a work.
• “Target audience ” is a notable case of invoking both the author and the audience. Here, even the very experience itself becomes under scrutiny, as if enjoying things wrong is a social taboo. Of course, a critic should admit when a work does not speak much to their tastes, but that doesn’t make the criticism inherently worthless. This is a false dichotomy between the contents of work and personal opinion. All criticism that’s not written as marketing centers one’s personal taste, it’s just that “the taste” is often more complicated than “I like this work because it confirms to type of content, style etc. what I’ve already found appealing before.”
• When a creator turns out to be responsible for unethical things, it might be difficult to engage in their work. The process of experiencing a work entails separating art from the artist, but the art is a part of the artist. So if one sees only a domestic abuser when they see a face, they might not be able to see a fictional character in that face. That’s one of more understandable reasons not to discard author as an authority, but in many cases there is no reason to shame people who can see past an author, that’s what supposed to happen. This goes other way around too. A person with good intentions can make fiction with bad implications. Trying to judge one’s entire personhood around their work alone is not fruitful.
• When discussing the cultural impact of a work, or its function as something other than art, invoking the author might seem intuitive. It’s quite possible to look at a creator and the creation process of a work, and deduce their purposes. However even here, it is not actually necessary. We can understand that something is Nazi propaganda without even knowing anything about the author. A work of art is an alive being, we can find out its place in greater cultural context just by communicating it. The only thing to keep in mind is not to invalidate personal connections. It’s entirely possible that a work can be harmful in certain contexts while being valuable and in others.
• As long as art remains a commodity, supporting works means elevating their creators. As such, it is perfectly reasonable to not support harmful works and creators, but the limits of individual choices should be recognized. It is likely prudent not to commission drawings from that child abuse fetishist, but worrying about whether a blockbuster movie gets funded by the military doesn’t achieve much , the boycotts rarely do anything for a reason.

It’s no coincidence that most arguments about invoking author, audience, “rules of art” etc. seek to end the discussion. Establishing an authority on becomes a very literal goal. “You can’t enjoy lesbians in the show, because it is made for men.”, “This game is only a silly meme, you can’t enjoy it sincerely”, “The thing you love sucks” and so on. Of course, such an authority is not independent of existing power structures. De-personalizing art is dangerous not only because it stifles the discourse and collective treasure of ideas, but because it only ends up to serve the existing oppressive relations. Striped of the person, all remains to the viewer is to emulate other’s experiences. ” AAA game industry is a very poignant example here. The studios freely appropriate real life conflicts, struggles but absolutely refuse that their games are making any political statements. They use microtransations, premium access, timed content, and all kinds of devious psychological manipulation to goad players into certain behaviours. They discourage negative reviews and critical presses. Often they are hostile to hacking and emulation, instead offering their own restrictive services., also try to subjugate modding at times. Even the simple idea of being able to play games offline is seen as undesirable. Never mind not owning the game, the player is not even allowed to own their experiences. Only what’s useful to capital is valid.
When freed from the audience, author, and absolutist criticism, an unrestricted, bountiful flow of exchange between the person and the work starts. Indeed, it is not one way at all. A game will be completely different to a first-timer, a veteran of a genre, a beta-tester, a writer who plays it for reviews, a person who revisits it a decade later. As the viewer looks at the work and the work reflects back at them. Art can tell a lot about its viewer, often more than it tells about its creator. Less in a collective sense, and more in a personal way. Trans people usually read gender-fluidity in a work differently than cis people. Nostalgia is mis-applied in criticism quite often — and oh do I have problems about it — but it’s not a lesser feeling to have towards art. The cozy language here might be misleading, but personal connection is actually neutral phrase. It doesn’t have to be positive, nor healthy. No matter how masterfully a writer deconstructs it, some will always side with tyrants in a story. No matter how blatant it is, some will defiantly deny any queerness in a work. Nevertheless, it’s all about this connection, not the series of letters, pixels or sounds. A major part of creator’s challenge is to make what they want to say a part of the connection between the viewer and the work, but they can never have the last word.
De-personalizing art make it less worthwhile for all. No one should feel inferior because their love of work is not seemingly based on objective qualities, all qualities we seek derive from the personal. Overly concerning about whether a work is problematic or not does not much else besides punishing oneself. Yes, even when a work is terrible in from one perspective, from another interpretation it can be wonderful, they can co-exist even for the same person. We can and should be critical and still cherish our connections to art. Which creators we need to support financially and uplift their vices brings a valid ethical angle, but it’s important to remember in most cases that’s something beyond what individuals alone can impact. Do the same to ideas too. “Steal” the ideas of thinkers, writers you like and leave the rest. Representation matters, but it’s not more important than your experiences. Interpreting art is re-creating it in one’s own image, fully embrace it! Only art that successfully lives inside people can impact society.
This is why “death of the author” is so important to me. It’s not merely about ignoring author’s post-publish output, it is liberating art from the tyranny that turns the viewer and the creator into laborers who are coerced to produce the existing systems in art again and again, for the wage of a small window of human feelings. The only way to resist this is to make art ourselves. I call this stance “dethronement of all authors”. Unlike death of the author, it is more interested in all meta-authors of work rather than author’s brand, and implies a more deliberate rejection of de-personalization imposed upon us.
This article mostly talks about in abstract terms, because it is an introduction to a series where I examine various topics concerning de-personalization. And I will focus on video games, because I see a lack of discussion of this kind on that area, but games not only bring whole new dimensions to this subject, but it constantly generates such discourse that… oh my Madoka the discourse!…
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Emelina, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

Fairness in Competition

"Trans people in sports" remains to be a frustrating "debate". On the one side, there are those who know how hormones and human body work; and on the other, transphobes.  Science part of this topic one thing, but it is revealing in another way too. I want to discuss the inherent problems of "fair competitions".
What is a fair competition? Being fair broadly refers to equal efforts getting equal outcomes. Cheating is deemed problematic because it violates this, it gets around obstacles everyone else has to struggle. Then, taken to its logical conclusion, a truly fair competition would be one where everyone's obstacle is the exact same, which leads to everyone has exactly equal chance of winning. Once the all internal factors are equalized, the only thing that determines the winner is the external randomness, thus an ideal fair competition would lead to a random outcome with uniform distribution, like rolling an ideal dice or flipping an ideal coin.
There is an obvious problem about this: Competitions are usually supposed to determine who is better at something. A competition with equal outcome cannot do that. And in one way, that seems unfair too. If equal effort means brings equal outcome, then why more effort shouldn't bring a better outcome? This is a very clear contradiction which needs to be solved, but how?
Mario Kart(1992-2016), a racing game series, tries to do it by an item called blue shell. It's an item anyone besides the racer in the first place can obtain and used as a sure way to make the racers in front of the user explode and lose precious speed. This item attracts the hatred of a lot of players. "The game punishes the skill, so it's unfair" so the thought goes. What's happening here is the series taking a very clear stance: This game is not primarily about proving one's skill at racing. It's casual and supposed to be fun for all of the players, because of this regardless of their reflexes are or how much time they have invested in this game everyone gets a chance of victory. Thus, Mario Kart games are actually fair for more players overall, because the competition the series offers is for the sake of itself, for having a good time.
My left hand is weaker and have delayed reflexes. It puts a ceiling to how well I can do in a lot of competitive games. In a fighting game for instance, anyone who is above the beginner skill will defeat me with near certain possibility. Competitions can be only so much fun when one knows they are going to lose. The "blue shell" design would benefit me here a lot, but most games do not have that. They have a cumulative effect on victory. The more one plays, the better they get, which leads them to play more, opening the skill gap. If I used a method to bring myself to the level of someone with average hands, such as a  special controller, that would most likely seemed as unfair, because I would be seen as bypassing the skill requirement. That's only partially true though, my the skill requirement is already far higher and what I am doing here is bringing up to myself closer to the normal starting position, not beyond, so that I can enjoy it like anyone else. Otherwise it's like thinking a wheelchair user using elevator is unfair to abled people who can climb stairs.
When competition becomes more serious than games, this line of thinking hurts people much more. A striking example here is exams, where the fairness is supposed to be much more important. Everyone is responsible for the same courses, asked same questions, given equal time, subjected to the same surveillance. The violation of these terms is cheating, such as using an external source of information. The exams are done to determine how much the student has met the goals of the courses, the fairness is entirely defined in the context of the time frame where the exam takes place. In contrast, whether the person the ability to prepare for the exams, such as having a suitable learning environment, mental capability, access to proper material etc. is not relevant here. Nor someone taking private courses is seen as a problem. All that matters is the number on the paper.
What's at play here is a fundamentally different understanding of fairness. It isn't holistic or universal. Only a predefined set of factors are important, the other problems are solely the concern of the individual, which means the hierarchies which create them are fair. As a result, the true function of a "fair competition" from this perspective is to reinforce existing hierarchies, "the best" must be the one that validates the hierarchies "with merit". It's no coincidence then that minorities are a constant target from the angle of competition.
The treatment of Serena Williams is an eye-opening example. Despite having zero evidence about it, she is again and again suspected of doping. This is very blatantly racism, in a special dehumanizing way. Supposedly, the winner is the best and that's fair, but her success is an error for the system. Serena is in a space that excludes her and as such, her very body is seen as illegitimate and unnatural.
It's hard not to draw any parallels to this in trans debate. Watch how hormone therapy is treated like its nuclear mutation. Trans people's genitals, bones, muscles are endlessly questioned, mocked... Their bodies and privacy is violated to no end. That's precisely the purpose of course: It serves to enforce the gender norms and maintain one more sphere of society where trans people are excluded.
To combat this, it's not enough to just respond the bad faith arguments however. Convincing people who trans women join the tournaments under similar hormone levels to cis women is a forward step, but it's still in the very process that dehumanizes trans people in the first place. Trans people should not have to prove anything or choose between their identity and careers. Non-binary people face a blanket exclusion by the system. The gender division itself is what creates these problems.
The fact that women's sports get less attention, prestige and money compared to men's, the excess attention on sportswomen's physical bodies, sports' heavy association with masculinity despite the history of women's divisions are not a coincidences. It's not that a cis woman cannot ever beat a cis man in a physical competition. Certain aspects of human body provides consistent advantages in certain sports, like height in basketball, yet this is not considered unfair. Certain sports already have different categories for weight; there could be easily a similar system where one can participate sports in the certain classes of performance, mass, hormones, age without ever caring for identity. Even chess is divided by gender for the same reason. The idea behind it is the same: "The best" of human must be male.
This doesn't have to be strictly intentional. "Fairness", "effort", "merit" aren't static constructs developed outside of society, they are also part of its structures. When, "the best" matters the most in competitions, it's hard to "the best" not be informed by existing hierarchies. Individual sportspeople has a chance rise to the top by cultivating their own brand, but an amateur club of friends, or even small town teams won't ever rise to high leagues, they can't just keep up with the absurd amount money poured in this business. The only way to make the competition healthy is to stop caring about the best, and focusing on mutual betterment, joy and harmony. Only then, sports can commit themselves to the ideals of peace, friendship, but today, they are a tool of nationalism, racism, capitalism, patriarchy and chauvinism..
Just as there is no fairness in a competition to determine the best, so there is no justice in a society built on hierarchies.  Only true solidarity can lead us to betterment of all, not competition between individual brands or enforced collectives.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Emelina, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

What is Skyrim?

Media criticism around The Elder Scrolls: V Skyrim(2011) did not help me articulate the connection I had with the game. The game either is "huge epic world where you can do anything you want", or "wide as an ocean but deep as a puddle." Neither describes what Skyrim feels like to me: So, here I will exactly try to do that instead.
[caption id="attachment_1308" align="alignnone" width="600"] A mudcrab[/caption]

Teaching the Adventure

The beginning of the game  is not great. It is a several minutes of nothing but dialogue, followed by a linear hallway where enemies can be dealt with your follower. Aside from creating a great deal of false expectations and not really fitting the spirit of the game, it's an inferior tutorial compared to what comes after it.
When the player exists the first cave, they can go anywhere they want. They are nudged to follow their accomplice but  nothing really stops them. If they listen what the game says,they are made to choose a birthsign and then guided to Riverwood. It is a small town but neatly packed with tutorials. The blacksmith's lessons on crafting is an obvious one. Most of them are subtle however:
The player quickly learn how crime works, where they can enter, what they can take, and whom they can attack freely. The town serves a safe place to practice stealth. This learning process feels organic compared to the one in the cave, where the sleeping bear is much less alert than every other bear in the game. The town as a whole serves as a template for all the other towns and introduces the player how quests work.
Player is then directed to Whiterun. Along the way they can see some warriors fighting a giant which both informs them of guilds and alerts them to random encounters of similar nature. Upon entering the city, the player is allowed to have a quick demonstration of speech skill.
Whiterun is special as it's towards the center of world map and a place where player likely revisits a lot, especially during some of the longer questlines. Compared to other cities, its layout is simpler and all main utilities are neatly placed closed to each other. The "thane" system and house ownership is also introduced here.
Next up: There is the dungeon clearance quest. This dungeon serves as a warm-up to future dungeons and informs the player how to obtain "shouts". Upon completion, the player introduced to dragons, and then shouts. And so, the game is now fully open to explore. .
Overall, the game is very good at teaching itself, without needing long texts or breaking the game's pace. The real beautiful part is, if player goes completely off-road from the designed path, they could still have a similar tutorial experience, the world can adapt very quickly to the player. This plays into the strongest asset of Skyrim: Exploration.
[caption id="attachment_1309" align="alignnone" width="1211"] Giant hitting a guard, resulting in the guard being flown to the sky[/caption]

A Seamless World

I won't bother the reader with yet another endless praises of Skyrim world, To summarize it: it's really good, with excellent ambient music very act of walking becomes joyful. Instead, I will focus how the other systems in the game contribute to this feeling.
Just by stumbling into a place, player can get new loot, some weird encounter or easter-egg, a little piece of lore or a whole new quest. Wandering around never feels like a waste of time, and the more player follows their curiosity the better they are rewarded. Quests in Skyrim are criticised for their basic go-get-something structure, but that also plays into this. It's usually possible to just randomly pick up a quest item and start the quest from there. The world has very few truly inaccessible places, the player can swim, climb, find shortcuts, encounter something new.  Even the lukewarm reception glitches got can be tied into this; they just become another attraction to see.
Skyrim is very dedicated to make sure player doesn't feel frustrated or trapped. No dungeon is truly undefeatable, their level is set on first encounter so to they can be defeated later. Tougher enemies can often avoided by sticking to certain roads. It's also always possible to adjust the difficulty from the menu. The player can always have enough cash and resources to continue.While I don't think game is a cakewalk in the first couple dozen of hours, challenging the player is definitely secondary to seamlessness of exploration.
Battle system also plays into this. The game is easy on reflexes, there is hardly any number crunching, the skills naturally grow in players journey, all is self-explanatory. The game doesn't punish the player for trying out things. They can start by wildly swinging axes, then want to sneak around for a while and try out some spells along the way. It is designed to be as accommodating and as possible. From the melee fight animations to hitting someone from afar, the game instantly rewards the player with something new. Poisons, shouts, environmental hazards, various types of spells, lycantropy, weapons with magic effects, magic staffs, even their naked fists are at the disposal of player. Fighting in the game is basic and crude at times but its simplicity keeps it in the way to be an obstacle to exploration and it is satisfying to have some demon lords cleave through the enemies, repeatedly shooting people through their head from shadows, or just thoughtlessly hurling oneself at the enemy with a fire breath in one hand and a sword in other.
While there is a shout to run faster, the walking speed itself feels just right. The dungeons are often just long enough to not feel tiresome. There is never a sense of walking in endless, empty void. The most importantly, while the exploration is at the heart of the game, it's not made mandatory. Player can often just follow quest marks and fast travel. This is criticized for ruining exploration but making it on player's terms overall makes it stronger. There are some quests without map markers and they make a nice pace of change. And keeping it to specific quests ensures that when player wants to explore something, it's always on their terms. Therefore, the act of walking never feel feels like a chore; on the contrary, it's a quite meaningful in on itself.
There is certainly a sense of adventure and wonder in Skyrim. In these areas, the game solidly carries the true spirit of a player RPG(*). For the rest, the game starts to get confused sometimes...
[caption id="attachment_1312" align="alignnone" width="800"] Two blue butterflies[/caption]

Dragonborn? What Dragonborn?

The game is not confused on one front: Dragonborn does not matter as a character. Not only in the sense they are an empty vessel, no, the game is vehemently focused on making Dragonborn utterly irrelevant and minimizing the level of abstraction between the world and the player.
This is quite obvious from the way lore looks back at past Elder Scrolls protagonists. The Agent, the Nerevarine, the Champion of Cyrodill are all recorded in the same manner. "They came from nothingness, saved the day and one day, vanished mysteriously." One might think this is to not have a certain canon to invalidate the player's choices in the past game. However, this premise is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, the details can be lost after a long period of time and medieval recording is not the best, but no, Elder Scrolls protagonists can amass an absurd level of financial/social influence to be completely forgotten like this. If they merely interested in keeping the canon vague, they could use the typical unreliable narrator style of Elder Scrolls writing. However, not only the texts speak very little of these nameless heroes, all of their achievements are undone in the next installment of the series: The Empire is shattered, factions of the pasts are in decay. The game makes a strong statement with this: The Dragonborn is merely a legend for the player to wear, only the wearer is important for the game.
This is reflected well on the rest of the lore as well. The more one reads the books and spends time in the world, the more discrepancy between the two becomes clear:

• The weirder, more magical side of the lore almost never comes up. Daedric quests are usually just shinier "go-get-item" quests. The whole mage guild quest is just another defeat the large evil plot. The player almost always interacts with magic in the most mundane gameplay level.
• The interactions and backgrounds of races almost never affect the player. Sure, Khajiit traders aren't taken into cities, a Khajiit Dragonborn or their followers won't ever have any problem. For all the talk of prejudice, the player themselves never experience any real inconveniences, just some rude talk at worst.
• Almost no information from books or rumors comes useful or at least even vindicated during the game. For example, at no point in the game you can confront Ulfric Stormcloak with his past or his views on other races. Those things are just happens, player has to always contend third-party information.

The quests have a hollow feeling to them, furthering the theme of Dragonborn's irrelevance. When player is given narrative choices, those are crafted very deliberately to either arrive at an equal or similar conclusion. The quest in Riverwood will make the player lie about one of two love interests for a woman. The two guys are equally invested in lying about each other, there is no way for the player to make a moral choice. This isn't a gray morality choice. The choice is what player gets as a reward, an archer follower or a melee follower? This faux gray morality comes up again and again throughout the game, the most glaring one being in the civil war questline.
One might think it's a choice between a corrupt repressive empire vs. nationalists but the game tries it's hardest to make sure the player can't reach any clear conclusions. Are Stormcloaks racist? Yes, but not too much, it seems more of a Nord thing in general? In that context it's kind of laughable that they can immediately trust a High Elf Dragonborn. Are Imperials repressing freedoms? Yes, but not too much, secretly they allow it, it's enforced partially because of Ulfric's actions anyway. Both sides are secretly helped by Thalmor to continue the war, both sides can't see the threat of Alduin. The player never gets to feel too bad for favoring one side, the choice really boils down to color: Red or Blue?
The moral meaningless gets bolstered by the fact that Dragonborn doesn't have any kind of morality themselves and player can't fill in the blanks. Without any hesitation from the game, the player can happily murder people for a death cult; do basic chores to help people, join a civil war to little personal benefit , adopt kids, endlessly desecrate graves and slay creatures in the pursuit of power, play matchmaker between shy lovers, join a vampire clan all the while saving the world from existential threats. The player can simply opt out of quests they find unreasonable, but they will be always in the quest log. Ready to be completed, if the player finds the reward appropriate...
The final aspect of Dragonborn's worthlessness comes by the lack of impact and permanence of their actions. After the main quest, not much changes for the world. The living legend does not gain a social leverage in a society that highly values warrior culture. The dragons does not cease to attack. They can be leader of all factions in the game. Again very little changes and all Dragonborns earns is to doing low-rank chore quests that will never end. They can fight in a devastating Civil War, but the victory does not change much besides uniforms. There will be always remnants of enemies to fight, no actual policy will be implemented, they won't even be able to see a formal crowning they have fought so hard for. Becoming a vampire-hunter and destroying a thousand-year old vampire clan does little to stop the player becoming a vampire lord themselves. The game will respect the position of an apple after the player knocked them off from a table more than literally anything Dragonborn ever does.
[caption id="attachment_1313" align="alignnone" width="1031"] A black kettle on the head on a woman. The kettle is obscuring her head to chest.[/caption]

Quests As Both A Success and Failure

What the quests, dialogue and story are for then? The quests are all about tangible gameplay rewards and pushing the player for more exploration. They either come in the form of very simple "kill/Get X for Y" or theme park attractions, where player enjoys some distraction from the usual exploration cycle: Player assassinates the Emperor, joins the hijinks of a Daedra lord, infiltrate a Thalmor base at a party. All the writing exists is to give some context to player's journey and spice up their themepark ride. Looking at from this perspective, radiant quests aren't so bad. They are just a way to ensure player has something to do at all times, they just lack the packaging of lore. Regular quests are usually just fine as well: Explore the Dwemer ruins and unfold the story of an adventurer, clear out a vampire cave but while doing so, reveal the hidden vampire in the town. At their best, the themepark quests are memorable and can feel like a refreshing break from all the fetch quests. The inherent absurdity of Skyrim improves the otherwise-dull parts too. One can only take a story so seriously when their follower starts to shout "Let's kill someone!"in the most inappropriate moments.
At their worst, they feel detached from rest of the game in a way that renders the player's typical activities sour. In master level conjuration spell quests, the player needs to obtain a stone, so they need to tame an unbound Dremora Lord into giving them by defeating them several times. The player engages with magic that's different from merely using them weapons, the quest delves into the nature of summoning otherworldly beings. It tackles the lore, perfectly fitting for a college of mages too... but it also makes the generic "thwart the doom" plot really dull in comparison. Normally, the player is conditioned to expect lore staying in the background, they are used to purely functional quests, but the existence of a quest like this makes one wish for more.
The player agency is very central to Skyrim, and player is trained to treat narrative branches in a utilitarian way. The linearity of quests is often elegant enough as to not make the player feel railroaded to something. One quest really sticks out like a sore thumb however: The quest about murder investigation in Markath. It's decent expect the part the player is marked as guilty and has to go to the jail. The player can either accept going to jail or... not be able to advance the quest while dealing with an infinite number of guards. The question shows itself like a midday sun: If there isn't a real alternative, why that choice exists? Sure, it's absurd to a person not ever thinking about resisting a libel, but it's a familiar absurdity that is stitched in every corner of Skyrim. This quest feels out-of-place.
We tend to think immersion only in the sense of believability of a world from a narrative sense, but there is a level of immersion provided by coherent, consistent game rules. Tetris(1985) doesn't feel "real" but in its abstract way, it feels meaningful. In Skyrim, some characters having immortality is absurd but it's an accepted premise, just like accepting a premise of a fantasy world. The game teaches the player the functional linearity of the quest and is fairly consistent about it, but then there comes the first Dark Brotherhood quest. After the player kills the abusive runner of the orphanage in Riften, Astrid -- the leader of the brotherhood -- adducts the player to a shack for "a kill they must repay" The player is told that one of three hostages in the room has a contract on them, and the player needs to kill the correct person, Those three people all have reasons to be disliked by people but the player can't ever know who the real contract is. Of course, the sense of choice is fake, Astrid does not actually care whom the player kills and the player is destined to be a cold-blooded murderer for a death cult from here on out. It's the narrative linearity and faux-gray morality in its purest.
But wait! There is a real choice: The player can kill Astrid, thus fail the quest and start the one for destroying the Dark Brotherhood instead!. In a vacuum, this is a brilliant twist: Players who are long conditioned to expect important characters as unkillable has to think outside the box. In the larger context this brings two problems: This weakens other quests that logically could be altered with eliminating key people, and the quest after that is a complete joke. Destroying Dark Brotherhood is exactly like any other "kill these people quest", the player just casually is given the location of secret base and password of the magic door. At the cost of giving up one of more entertaining storylines of the game, tons of gold, cool gear and spells and more. It's as if the game is making fun of the player for ever thinking Dragonborn could make a meaningful difference or assert any semblance of personality.
The so-called main questline is emblematic of both strengths and the weaknesses of the quests. Individually, climbing to a top of mountain, capturing a dragon, infiltrating an embassy are all fun and memorable, the rewards are good, Paarturnax is one of actually interesting characters of the game, and even the trip to Sovngarde could be a nice distraction. Collectively however the main questline, which should be a high mark Skyrim, goes against all of its ethos. The game starts to care Dragonborn as a character, for a little while, but the legends, lore and exposition alone just does not make a compelling story. Sovnguard is in particular a low moment for the game. Functionally an empty, linear hallway that ends in with an inferior repeat of a fight several quests ago.. The main questline" could be much simpler, most other quests in it could be independent adventures, without the excess forced dialogue and traveling back-on-forth. Together with the examples above, this reveals some lack of confidence in game's design. Previous Elder Scrolls games all tried to be a lot of things at once, but Skyrim is usually very adamant in putting player at the center, just occasionally it feels like it needs to mimic every other Western AAA RPG. For better or worse, Skyrim is not like any other.
[caption id="attachment_1310" align="alignnone" width="1852"] A Vigilant of Stendarr standing near a vampire and a daedra, two things he is supposed to hunt[/caption]

The Heart of Skyrim

It's even different from the player-RPG tradition too. Dragon Quest(1986) ends with player becoming the king. The dungeon-crawling adventures end at the last door, last floor, last creature. Some of them, like Pokémon(1996-2018) series have post-game content that might infinitely continue, but they still carry a credits screen, a bookmark that the player reached at the end of adventure, they are just free to stay for more. Skyrim does not end. Not in the way of an arcade game that ends when player runs out of lives or an MMO which are kept alive by upgrades. No wonder the opening and "ending" feels so alien then; Skyrim is an eternal world frozen in time which Dragonborn can only change minimally. The main quest is just another quest in the log.  Dungeons cleared re-fill in a short time. There are always radiant quests to make.  Most enemies and weapons re-spawn indefinitely. Player can level up forever. The game does not leave the player goalless mind you, there are rare items to collect, houses to buy and craft, tough enemies to defeat... But this don't change the fact that only way to end the adventure is to quit the game.
This speaks to the very heart of Skyrim. A lot of RPGs make a point about respecting player agency but Skyrim demands agency. There are a lot of, really a lot of ways to play the game, but there aren't many extrinsic incentives to play like one way over others. The player can make the combat trivial in just couple of hours.  All damage is governed by a simple difficulty slider. The games will be never difficult unless player explicitly wants the game to be hard. Quests aren't really that special from other activities: Being obscenely rich with alchemy, adopting kids and making them go to their beds, climbing mountains with a horse, stealing an entire town's worth of people's clothes and have them act casually with their underwear, rolling dozens of cheese wheels on top of a hill, having a library of all books in Skyrim. From the moment the player exits the Helgen Cave, they are free not to follow the arrow.
There is a certain game design philosophy that says a game should be meticulously crafted for a specific experience. "Players will optimize the fun out of game."  as it goes. Skyrim stands as the complete opposite of this idea. More than any aspect of the game, this is the turn off of many people. It's even seen as a revolting-idea for an RPG, as a hallmark of a lazy, "dumbed down" game design, just a sandbox of content. Despite enjoying the game, I felt a similar distastefulness when I got eventually bored with the game.
I don't think so now. Skyrim ends when the player gets bored, and that's okay. It might be after 3 hours, 30 hours or 330 hours. The game just wants the player have some nice adventure for a while. They can rake a trip in the woods, see a mudcrab and a bear fighting, fight with a bandit but don't have to think too much about it. Yet they can also think too much about it, spend a lot of time in details of the game, hopefully the game has something for them. The game even directly addresses this with Ebony Warrior. He is a nameless warrior who can actually seriously challenge him. He specifically exists for a high-level quest: He completed all quests, defeated all challenges, there is nothing else to do, he says and wants the player to defeat him as a last fight. Dying is the only way he can quit the game, but if player thinks there is nothing else to do, they can just quit right there. If dungeons started to feel repetitive after 100 hours, maybe they need a break from them.
Skyrim has a certain influence on endless content open-world games we have today. However, it is actually not one of them. There are two fundamental differences. First is that Skyrim actually doesn't mind player quitting, it's not a cynical live-service game. (Although Bethesda would certainly like to be the case) The second is Skyrim doesn't want to be everything,   Unlike today's giant 100+ games, Skyrim is usually consistent and honest in what it wants to be.  It has a soul in it that gently guides the player into finding the meaning of Skyrim. Sometimes this is glitches, annoying characters and memes. Sometimes it's adorning the game with a lot of mods. Sometimes realizing it has not much meaning anymore and ending the journey.
For me, it was the funeral for my dog. During one of our adventures, we have been ambushed by a group of vampires. Of course, as the master wizard I am, they were no match to me, but the dog was a frail being. I didn't even realise it until the fight was over. I am proud save-scummer but here something stopped me. I guess... I felt it was like a disservice to everything. Instead I carried the dog to near river. Under the weird moons of Tamriel, I put down some flowers over its body. Sent three pulses of light to the sky and waited in silence for a while. While the game's moody night music is playing I did nothing and watched until the lights run out. Then I gave the dog to the river, and it got carried away... and away....
[caption id="attachment_1311" align="alignnone" width="600"] A dirty brown dog[/caption]

Masterpiece?

This is why, Skyrim is a profound, refined experience and I can't agree with the criticisms about game's shallowness. It can get rough around edges, but it clearly connected to me on in its unique way even other TES games could not provide. It has a simplistic but enduring charm. I would even call it the masterpiece of Bethesda. Yes, the game journalists were right about this, but not for the reasons they were usually praising the game. Surely, today Bethesda can make games with better graphics, more polished combat, larger world, more voice actors etc. but if they continue to chase the tail of today's trends then I can't expect too much from a future installment, certainly not the magic of Skyrim. Thankfully, it seems that Skyrim won't leave us anytime soon...
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Emelina, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

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(*) RPGs where the player char. acts as an avatar for the player instead of having a uniuqe personality or one constructed by the player. Read more, here... 

Re-Classifying: Role Playing Games

I am dissatisfied with the way video game genres are conceived.

• They are often based upon superficial features which actually don't meaningfully unite the games, such as aesthetics or the simplest aspects of gameplay.
• Conversely, they are often also too strict to allow serious creative spins.
• The narrative elements are usually not considered as a factor in genre-naming.
• The general marketing buzz is making meaningful naming harder.

Role-playing games has been hit quite hard by this. In this essay, I will first discuss the history of term "role-playing game" and the many ways it is understood today, try to unpack what constitutes a genre and then attempt to construct a terminology which can communicate what people try to achieve words like "RPG", "JRPG", "action-RPG" etc. more clearly, using examples along the way.

Eastern and Western RPGs

Although role-playing games had originated from board games, they found their way into video games in mere couple of years: The first edition of Dungeons&Dragons was released in 1974. In 1979, first true adaptation of D&D mechanics, Akalabeth was released. In the following years, Ultima(1981-1999)[*] and Wizardy(1981-2017) series took off and they shaped what's known as "Western-RPG" today. "Computer-RPG" was also born as a synonym, since before mid-2000s, Western RPG developers often prefered PC as their main platform.

Folks in Japan also quickly fell in love with role-playing games, and they wanted some of that action themselves. Among the first, there was Dragon Slayer(1984). However, unlike RPGs at the time the game used real-time combat. Hylide(1984), similarly had a "crash into enemies" combat, and featured a lot of mechanics that would influence Legend of Zelda(1987). Thus, Action-RPG hybrids were born. However, in many ways, the true milestone game was Dragon Quest(1986), proved to be so popular and spawned so many clones that it ended up defining much we think of as "JRPG", "Eastern RPG" or " Console RPG", as these games were usually designed for and are still usually released to consoles.

Regardless how much they have might make sense when these terms started to gain acceptance, nowadays their usefulness are dubious at best. When people say "JRPG" or "WRPG", do they simply talk about the game's country of origin? No, they do not. Rather, they attempt to communicate a collection of somewhat unrelated ideas with a single word.
When the word "JRPG" is used, depending on the speaker's age, it can either mean "16-bit games of Square" , sometimes also including "PS1 era of Square games". Animesque visuals and character design, turn-based combat, a mixture of medieval and futuristic fantasy, linear stories instead of "role-playing" and so on. And there is certainly some truth to this stereotype, a lot of it can be directly traced back to Dragon Quest(1986) itself. Unfortunately, stereotypes alone are not very good when it comes to classification, and are often misleading.

• Visual novels and anime have a clear influence on Japanese games; just like Hollywood, Western fantasy and sci-fi literature have in the West. However, this is by no means restricted to RPGs and there are just too many exceptions and subversions to make it meaningful for categorization. (If anything, AAA Japanese game scene is overall more diverse in terms of visual presentation than Western one)
• Turn-based battles stereotype is also misleading as not only trend started in Japan, many prominent and long-running action RPG titles and series are of Japan origin. Tales(1995-2016), Ys(1987-2016), Dragon's Dogma(2012), Bloodborne(2015), World of Mana(1991-2003), Kingdom Hearts(2002-2019), Xenoblade(2010-2017), and of course Legend of Zelda(1986-2018). (More on this later) By comparison, it took quite a while to have action-RPG titles which are commonly praised for their battle mechanics.
• Sometimes, it is said that the only true RPGs are the ones that allows the player develop a character with choices in a deep story and well-developed world. However, this is an ahistorical definition. Digital RPGs were always primarily about imitating the mechanics of tabletop games, character stats, levels, battle mechanics, monsters, dungeons; not characters and plots. This criteria is mostly applied to exclude Eastern RPGs, but it also leaves out a good portion of Western releases. If anything, the former was once again quicker when it comes to complex plots, and "real computer RPGs" as known today was a product of late 90s.
• "Computer RPG" today means "this game resembles late 90s RPG releases", but looks awkward in everything else and "Console RPG" is self evidently outdated and non-descriptive today.

My purpose is here is not to say "Ha! People are so wrong!" No, they have understandable reasons, but insufficient vocabulary. For example, Dark Souls(2011), despite being a Japanese title, is not commonly referred as a JRPG. Even TV Tropes lists it under "Western-Style Action RPGs". When Western devs make games directly insipred by JRPGs, Undertale(2015) for instance, the games are sometimes referred as JRPGs, or "Japanese style". By this rationale, Megami Tensei(1987-2019) series, or at least all pre-2000 releases, should be also called "Western-style", because they are heavily inspired by Wizardy series. In fact, there are Wizardy games developed by Japanese devs after the original Western series had ended. So are they JRPG or WRPG? Computer RPG on consoles? Despite being heavily embraced among Japanese gaming culture, are these games still "Western Style?"
Eastern and Western role-playing games have a shared history and always have mutually influenced each other. Terms which simply refer to their continent of origin are too shallow to be useful to describe any consistent and meaningful differences, let alone to define a genre. However accurate they were in 80s, now they are in clear need of replacement.

Action RPGs and "RPG mechanics"

After arcade gaming blew up in 80s, the word "arcade" came to describe a certain style of games: Instinct-based gameplay, fast, loud, shiny, and often quite difficult, providing both instant gratification and a good sense of challenge. Many of these games came to be refered as called "action" games later, a term derived from films with similarly high-noise content. RPGs were popular as they are because they offered a direct contrast, suited for a home environment. A sense of adventure, gradual gratification, a feeling of achievement gained by perseverance and good planning. However, as we discussed before, hybrid games appeared rather quickly, attempting to combine both styles' strengths. And so, Action-RPGs came to existence and today they are used, in theory, for games where the skill is as important as the character stats.
The first problem with this term lies in the word "action" itself. As problematic as the words like "JRPG" are, at least they are just coherent enough to provide a little common ground. "Action games" are simply way too wide of a genre: It covers any game with melee fighting, simple sword combat, using vehicles, shooting, stealth, with their myriad variations and combinations. This is why we treat to most of these as separate genres. The mere uniting point is that the game involves controlling a character and having combat. When combined with "RPG" moniker, it just means "Player does not pause to select moves during combat." Is this a really helpful umbrella? Are Diablo(1996), Demon's Souls(2009) and Dragon's Dogma(2012) played for similar reasons? No, usually not. Tales of Xilla(2011) features real-time combat, where the player chains combos, block, dodge etc. but outside of battles the game is quite similar to any number of games in the Dragon Quest structure. If Baldur's Gate featured a combat-style closer to a mouse-clicking real-time combat style, it would change the game a lot, but would that be to a degree where it's no longer Baldur's Gate? Classifying games as "Action-RPG" is misleading as it centers the combat too much, regardless of whether this is actually right for the game in question, and obscures other fundamental similarities and differences.
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The second problem lies in "RPG mechanics with non menu-based combat" definition. With popularity of the RPGs exploding in late 1980s, many other games started to outright copy mechanics from these games: Quests, progression systems, inventory management and resources, more dialogue, elaborate plots, games overall becoming deeper and more suited to be played in longer sessions. Role playing games had such a widespread influence that, especially after the golden days of arcade had ended, many of such elements were fully normalized in general culture of games, no longer considered in the domain of RPGs.
This raised a question. Which "RPG mechanics" make a game Action-RPG? It's somewhat arbitrary. Legend of Zelda(1987) isn't called an RPG despite being clearly designed with RPGs, especially Hylide, in mind and attempts to hit similar notes: Adventure, gradual empowerment, secrets, a living world, dungeons, cool weapons and so on. Nowadays, this is even more confusing. Almost every large publisher action title has skill, item, character stat progression systems, conversely several RPG franchises have become more action-like. One wonders whether there is even a meaningful difference between an "Action-RPG" and "An action game with RPG mechanics" anymore.
Whatever the differences are, it's clear that neither "Action-RPGs" nor "RPG mechanics" are adequate terms to explain them.

What Is A Genre?

Well-defined names for genres provide an umbrella for the core feelings of similar works while creating room for enough diversity so that it doesn't pressure future works into being each other's clones. For movies and fantasy literature, that was quite easy; because the subjects of stories alone shape their themes, structures, tropes, so "What's this "film/book about " is usually a sufficient question for placing it under certain genres.
Being such a new medium like gaming has its quirks. Video games have always been grouped by their most immediate and noticeable qualities: Jumping, shooting, flying, playing ball, on the computer, has a lot of text, three-dimensional etc. Just like the creation of RPGs, video game genres very consistently born from attempts at simulating and gamifying real life activities in different ways. When the clones get diverse enough but still retain a common set of goals,  it becomes a genre.
Sometimes, the immediate qualities are good answers to "What's this video game is about?"  as they really speak to the core of the experience. For example, "platform games" are a very well-defined genre. They can be fast or slow, may or may not involve combat, can be linear, can require tight controls or prioritize a sense of journey, can be linear or focus on collecting things, can incorporate many different ways to interact with the world, can even successfully tell a narrative; but at their core, all platform games are mainly about giving the player a good sense of movement. It's quite possible that, despite how obvious that actually is, it is seldom questioned the fact that the player can jump several times their height and control their movement mid-air in platform games, literally no video game have even tried to make sense of it; because unlike a lot of video game clichés, it feels so natural. That's how much a basic interaction can define an entire genre.
Unfortunately, digital role-playing games are too complex for this method. All the stereotypes we use about RPGs are just attempts to reduce it into something very obvious and basic. The very word of "RPG" itself is usually just a shorthand for "This game has a leveling system for the characters". This is why Legend of Zelda is not called an RPG while Dragon Slayer is, the real mechanical difference the latter has a leveling system, the former does not.
If we want to define a coherent genre, we need to earnestly and thoroughly answer the question "What is at the core of an RPG?"

The Core of RPGs

Let us go back to the beginning. What was so fun about sitting in front of a small black-and-white screen, looking at plain text to simulate a battle is going on and pretend crudely drawn shapes are monsters and dungeon walls? It could not be any more different from playing on a table, surrounded by people, using extensive sheets and rulebooks, making the player's imagination go wild as they actively participate in the world and story dungeon master creates. This is our answer: Participation! Even with basic pixels and ASCII characters, the monsters they faced, the battles they survived, the dark and unforgiving corridors they conquered with great perseverance all felt real. Perseverance! No need for the motor skills and the strength of an actual warrior, no matter how powerful the foes are; no matter how unlucky the player is, they can steadily and surely will improve and their efforts will give fruit.
These are what all role-playing games have been always about. players are at the center of an adventure, a campaign, a journey. The games are built upon the transformation of the characters. If we take "magic" as an example subject, RPGs are not just toys to make magic, set pieces where magic happens, attempts to capture the feeling of being a witch or workshops to craft and maintain systems of magic and witchness. They can include all that, but they are mainly about taking the role of a witch in a specific place and time, not an abstract simulation of witchness. And this requires the witch to change, to grow, in positive or negative qualities, to make their existence materialized in the conflict, and player becomes the catalyst with their personal input.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference in board games and video games. It's not the fact as the latter is digital, you can host RPG sessions in a completely digital environment. No, in the former the author is alive, in the latter the author is dead. The former is actively created and re-created infinitely during experience, the latter is only created as an experience in the player's headspace, otherwise plays within the confines of pre-destined combinations . In this way, role-playing video games are not so much role-playing in a live setting but rather performing a role as an actor. The game world, with its total mechanical and narrative existence, is the audience,. As the player acts their role as the pirate, the highschool student, the thief, the spawn of demon god, or the destined hero they repeat their lines over and over, their acting improves, they are connected to their role and the game world is connected to the player more and more. Usually repeating lines isn't enough, they need to perform other talents, other ways to connect to the audience. Thankfully the game world is a rather patient audience. It will watch the player's every mistake, and clap exictingly any time the they get their act correct. Players are also allowed to improvise their roles, and even encouraged in many ways depending on the game.

Defining RPGs

So far, we have tried to find answers questions like "What draws people to RPGs over over other games?", "What are the shared feelings RPGs try to achieve?", "What are the core ideals of RPG". Now that we have decent idea a more formalized definition for RPGs is doable. In order to do this, instead of giving an encyclopedic definition, we will attempt to define high and low value factors for RPGs. This allows a better focus on the possibility and convenience of calling a game RPG instead of excluding it over rigid rules.
High value factors: The more decisive factors to call a game RPG. not every factor must absolutely be correct, as deciding a genre is not a simple true/false question, but the more factors it checks, more meaningful "RPG" moniker feels.

• The player is represented in the game world by at least one concrete character. No abstract godlike entities.
• A progression system to connect the player to the representative characters. Progression systems as merely as rewards for desired outcome, as a means to lengthen the play time or incentivize purchasing content, and progression which player have absolutely no control over do not count.
• The progression either occurs to the player characters, the tools they use, or the subordinates they are in control of.
• The progression systems are interconnected with other game mechanics, the setting and the narrative. More connected it is, the stronger role-playing gets.

Low value factors: These are not strictly required, nor really unique to RPGs but usually utilized to enhance the player's ability of role-making.

• A realized setting that exists outside of player's existence.
• Well-written characters that have an existence outside of serving as tools to player.
• Player are able to give their own characters depth or the characters should be written in a way that players can connect to them.
• Players are given opportunities to shape themselves, with classes, customization, crafting etc.
• Players can shape their character and narrative with dialogue choices.
• Randomized elements to solidify connection to the game world: Encounters, certain enemy statistics, the factor of chance during battles etc .
• An appropriate escalation of encounters and their rewards
• RPGs can contain many other systems for player expression: Tactical battle areas, shooting mechanics, platform elements, bullet dodging mechanics, anything can be thought of. When they are harmony with progression systems, they can enhance the role-playing.

Non factors: The world RPG should not be used to suggest the following.

• Specialness, deepness, or uniqueness compared to other games
• A particular degree of quality
• A particular battle mechanic or having battles at all
• A particular system of party, class, experience, weapon etc
• Whether the player characters are blank state, shaped by dialogue or has a full independent character.

That's not all. As can be seen, RPG is rather intended to be used as an umbrella, but we still need terminology to explain sharp differences between many RPGs. Here tabletop RPGs provide a method once again. Role-playing in a board game happens in many layers: The games mechanics which simulates characters their actions, the player input which breathes life into the characters, the lore and storylines put out by the dungeon master, and the social layer that is built by the players and DM. Because table top games are a medium where all participants are both authors and the audience, in what layers players are supposed to connect to the games are freely decided, so layers co-exists and feed into one another in the every second of play. Video games however are post-author experiences, the interactions will be limited and thus the role-playing must be directed by the game. Developers should decide whether the player character stands for the player, a character shaped by the player or an original character written by them. as a result games prioritize one of those layers over another.  Thus, those layers are quite convenient to divide RPGs into subgenres.

• Player RPG: The old school RPG. Literally dungeons and dragons. The mechanical connection is emphasized over others. The player character primarily functions like an avatar of player, solidifying player's direct existence in the setting.
• Character RPG: The "Western RPG" stereotype. The game is concerned with allowing the player to shape the characters and the setting throughout a story in a well-realised setting.
• Story RPG: The "Eastern RPG" stereotype. The game emphasizes telling a story the most, the player's role as an actor is more well-defined, with player characters having independent identities.
• Social RPG: Massive-multiplayer games, multi user dungeons, co-op play; really anything that involves more than one player.

Categorizing art, like art itself, is subjective, and a work of art can fit in more than one genre, or even one medium. The goal here is not to force things into rigid boxes. Whether calling a game RPG feels meaningful or not is more interesting than declaring "this is definitely not an RPG.".

Applying Categories

It is waste of time to argue whether games that are already embraced as quintessential RPGs are actually RPGs, such as Baldur's Gate(1998) or Final Fantasy(1987). More interesting are the cases where the line between simulating a character and acting one is thin. Emphasis on progression helps us specifically in such cases.
In God of War(2005-2010) series, PC is Kratos, a guy who is always mean and angry. With his mighty blades and strong hands, he breaks, cuts and smashes everything on his path. As the games progress, he slays stronger and stronger creatures and eventually gods themselves, enemies, allies and bystanders alike. There is an experience system, but it is not really tied to the character, Kratos is the perfect warrior and he ends up being a God but the system is pretty much unconnected, and does not even affect gameplay all that much . The reason why "ordinary person rising to be hero" stories are so convenient, they set up an easy justification for the player. Here, the game does not even try to cast a slightest of doubt on Kratos's victory, he is too angry to lose. The game does not connect the player to his desire of. revenge, because player is not Kratos. Instead they are effectively his body, his muscles, his blades, the vessel which channels his wrath. In turn, his story is mainly a justification to make the player indulge in action and gore. This is not a condemnation of the game, quite the contrary, the series are beautiful in their commitment to destruction and not in a "mindless" way either. This just means that player does not exist in the game, except for simulating the destruction.
By contrast, a series such as Legend of Zelda is firmly about making the player part of the world. Not with a narrative usually, but primarily through mechanics. Weapons, gadgets; all Link uses to interact with Hyrule evolve as the adventure deepens. The player's role being the hero of Hyrule, Link is the costume, the tools are the player's lines and Hyrule is the stage. The games my lack some common mechanics of RPGs but they are still solidly player RPGs. Link is the literal link between the player and the game. The "player RPG" title demonstrably is not a judgement of the story of the games, in fact, they are often viewed as succesful on that front too. The terms show that it shares the same basic goals with more traditional series like Dragon Quest. When looked at this way, it is no surprise Breath of the Wild came to exist. It was not following the trends of big budget titles, but the logical conclusion of the series' principles in 2018.
When we look past the superficial differences we can see that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim shares a lot of core ideals with Legend of Zelda and classical Japanese RPGs. Simplified battle mechanics compared to their predecessors, centering player's agency, dungeon exploration with puzzles, a living and changing "overworld", towns primarily offering  functional value over narrative value. Dragonborn is very similar to Link or Light Warrior, or Jim in the sense that the game is aggressively uninterested with them as a character. Dragonborn is only important insofar it makes the player obtain dragon powers, collect flowers, be an assassin, shoot fire balls. All narrative choices are essentially serve to determine what the player earns in gameplay: Be a vampire or a hunter, get a new companion or a demonic staff, choose between the red team and the blue team. There is a real effort to make the world feel alive and believable, and this effort serves to create a world where player gets to be a Dragonborn. Notice how this separates the game from the likes of Far Cry 4(2014), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City(2002) or Just Cause 3(2015), where the game world is just a sandbox for the player but the PC is almost entirely separated from the player. Such action games, just like in God of War, are chiefly about simulating things. Skyrim on the other hand, is in a lot ways a very traditional player RPG. The game has certain problems to present itself as one, but the game is usually very open and clear about its goals. As a result of the bloated meaning the word "RPG" carries, there was at least a vocal group among fans and critics who were disappointed about game's lack of narrative depth. How we classify games clearly shape player expectations.

Linearity and openness in games have multiple dimensions: Level design, combat, puzzles, narrative and so on. Player RPGs have often open gameplay with linear stories. Character RPGs on the other hand focus greatly on the narrative agency, even when it comes at the expense of player's own freedom. Certain quests will block others, the player can't win over every NPC nor they can't just attack an NPC just because they feel like it and expect nothing happens. Another common method is to limit the character building options: The player does not have free access to every spell, ability, weapon etc. and for the course of a play through, must choose for the character.  Permanent choices are the main engine for progression. That makes this sub genre easy to spot. Many works of Obsidian and Bioware can be categorized as such. So instead, let's look at a non-obvious example. Bioshock 2(2010). (Spoilers ahead)
The game is mostly linear structurally and narratively. The only character decision in the game is to ability to spare Little Sisters and certain enemies. This is connected to the mechanical progression system, where sparing the girls means the player has less ADAM to unlock skills. It's a very simple choice system but it does create an avenue for building a character. The Subject Delta can be the strongest Big Daddy: Uncaringly crushing everything to find one and only Little Sister they care for. Or, he can be something more, a truly failed prototype,with an intact humanity. There is yet another dimension to the choices,  they also directly influence Delta's daughter. With choices simple as they get, the player essentially builds two characters. In a very basic and pure sense, Bioshock 2 is a character RPG, and a good one at that. More so than the first game, the game is quite responsive to player choices, both in the story and the gameplay. The endings are varied and giving up powers actively creates a difficulty spike.
There is a common phrase in-game criticism: "Telling story through mechanics". Story RPGs are notable because they do the reverse.  In Final Fantasy 4(1991), in order to stand against evil Cecil must become a true hero in every sense of the word, so he gives up his dark powers and rises up as a paladin. At Level 1. It is not exactly the most fun thing for a while, but that's part of the role player takes when acting as Cecil. The volume of story is not enough to make a game story RPG, the mechanics should be informed by the narrative. This is why "the phoenix down" is memefied: "Why the characters can't revive the dead now?", the player asks. "Because that's what only player does, the item doesn't actually exist in the narrative's setting", the game answers. In those moments, the game quits being a story RPG. Story and gameplay being separate is fine for a player RPG, or a non RPG, but it is more noticeable in story RPGs. The problem is not game being unrealistic, it is that the player is forced to break their act, or worse, doesn't really act like a character at all. This is why Trails series(2004-?) is very consistent about this: no matter how over the top the battles are, no human character ends up in grave injuries in the end and so when someone seriously gets in the trouble, the games can justify that the items are not enough. Such are little details, but they add up in a long way to make sure players exist as real characters, not just through avatars or worse, in possession of bodies.
Strategy games in particular highlight this difference. In these games, players often only exist in the game world in the most abstract sense: The games might refer to player as a leader or pretend they are represented by someone in the game, but that's merely window dressing. The players are too omnipresent, can both control on a macro scale and every little behavior of individual units. Civilization series(1991-2019) are about progression of your faction in size, might, wealth, knowledge etc. In Warcraft 3(2002), there are units which can gain experience, unlock skills, carry items. These progression systems don't create any connection with the player, just like a chess piece being upgraded suddenly doesn't make it alive. In latter case, there is a story progression as well, but this isn't really connected to the gameplay beyond justifying game levels and objectives.
Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm(2013) is marketed as a regular strategy game, and looks like one at first glance. However, it is deeper than that. The game follows Kerrigan as she regains her place as the queen of Zerg swarm and gets her long-waited revenge. Zerg are a hive-mind species, their whole will is connected to Kerrigan. They can mutate and breed fast, and don't really do much else besides killing, morphing and expanding. In other words, they work like just as if they are in a real-time strategy game and on a character scale, it makes perfectly sense why she is able to command as if she is playing a RTS game. The game has two progression systems for Kerrigan. A skill tree for her psychic abilities and the growth of her swarm. As she grows in power, she starts to see the Zerg as a natural part of herself, and the Zerg , and the player, grow as the manifestation of her emotions. They truly become one. Regardless of its writing quality, structurally the game is a solid story RPG strategy title, resembling less the rest of Starcraft(1998-2015) series and more the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics(1997).

"Story RPG" doesn't imply complete lack of agency in narrative, but rather the agency doesn't serve character building. In Trails games, there are various optional side quests but the decision of completing them doesn't say anything about the main characters, these quests are canonically part of their adventure, it just means player are free to not experience them. Similarly, there are various dialogue choices in many quests, but there are obvious rights and wrongs in their choices. The player is allowed to improvise if they forget their lines but the script is very clear, they are not playing their roles as well as they are supposed to do.
Sometimes, the creative freedom of the player isn't so obvious. Persona 3(2006) is such one case. On the one hand, the main character is a silent protagonist, can engage in various relationships as player desires. Such relationships enhance his character build and can be affected positively or negatively by dialogue options. He can even choose different endings. On the other hand, he is not completely devoid of personality. Being usually silent is part of that personality, he is calm and unfazed. Although he can be very sociable, he also enjoys being alone. Furthermore, it can be argued that abstaining from social links is not choice that builds a personality, and when you get people angry in social relationships it doesn't affect the narrative at all. So, depending on how much one projects themselves into the main character, the game can be thought as both a character RPG and story RPG. Genres serve better as groups to highlight common patterns rather than boxes to fit media in after all.
Classifying can get really complicated when the game in question is confused about its focus though. This is usually the greatest flaw of Bethesda games, and Fallout 4(2015) in particular. Bethesda wants to eat the cake and have it too. They have some design philosophies a lot of people enjoy. Yet they still want to stay faithful to Fallout name a little, and also want to catch up with current AAA trends.  As the game begins, the player is introduced to a main character with a very clear background, lifestyle, relationships, motivations and even their own unique voice. The main core of the game however is a classic "explore, fight, get loot and xp" loop with crafting on top, directly contradicting what the PC wants to do. And sometimes, the game suddenly decides player should have agency in narrative, but not a lot. It is an end up uneven mix of story, character and player RPG where the ingredients don't really complement one another.
Undertale stands as a good example of a unique hybrid. (Incoming spoilers) Depending on player's actions, the relationship between the player and the player character dynamically change. A normal run has many endings, and the personality of PC is shaped by whom the they kill. They might be "a fight everyone in your path" person, they might spare some people because they feel close to them or think death might be unjust sometimes. In this way, the game is a character RPG.
In a genocide run, the presence of "the player" as an entity becomes the most vivid, with each kill the PC becomes a little like an empty vessel for the player's "adventure". Sans makes it clear: the player fights them because they can. They are curious, they want to complete, they want to overcome the challenge. This is one of the most underlooked points of Undertale, the point here is not condemning the player for killing fictional monsters, it is commenting on the fact that player doesn't have a personal connection to the game universe, and as a result the player plays the game like a classical RPG. The difference here is that the genocide run has no self-justification from the game world, no excuse plot, no sense of grandeur, it doesn't even foster greed or malice. The more player progresses, the game world erodes into a hollow shell, In the end, the monsters. the setting, dialogue, even battling all become meaningless. As the universe completely ends, the only thing you see is just pixels and numbers.  Chara has motives, reasons and relationships and even they end up ultimately meaningless, as after they destroy the universe, they are aware the player can still best them, by deleting save file, because they are just data after all. When those things matter to player even a little, they don't enter a genocide run, because they have an emotional attachment to the universe. Genocide run is a player RPG in the purest sense possible, player defeats enemies, becomes strong and defeats all who stands in front of them.
In the pacifist run, the player agency shrinks and PC grows as their own character. After they enter the lab, PC won't attack anyone, because "despite everything, this is you". That's who Frisk is. The silent and aloof kid who doesn't like fighting. By playing in a particular way, the player becomes an actor of Frisk's story. After the game ends, the characters explicitly ask the player to not reset the timeline again, so the player can either respect the story and restrain their agency for the story, or decide that they are what really matters.
Player can reset again and again, load different saves, delete existing ones; and thus alcan be considered both as a participator, and a dungeon master to the character they are role-play as, in their own single player campaign. In this way, Undertale approximates tabletop experience from angle most RPGs don't. It is both a mix of a single player RPG experience and something unique as a synthesis.
Single player isn't all there is to it of course. From Multi User Dungeons, MMOs, co-op mode in Divinity: Original Sin 2(2017), competitive and collabatory multi-player of Souls series to weird not-really-social gameplay of Fallout 76(2017) social RPGs are a huge world which I don't feel qualified to analyze in-depth. Instead, here is an exercise for the reader: If multi-player games you are playing have progression systems, do they serve to the player or to artificially make the game longer?
Further sub categorization is possible. Couple of examples: Dungeon-crawlers. Games heavily focusing on conquering mazes or dungeons. Rogue-likes: Characterized by permanent death and heavy focus on randomness. Metroidvanias: Where player's growth is much about their ability to exploration. And much more... They are not covered here in-depth because the they are not directly about role-playing, and this article is long as it is now.

Last Words

Genres matter, they influence how games are developed and perceived, intentionally and unintentionally, as they don't exist in a vacuum. Better analysis of genres helps us to understand where the game resides on the cultural sphere. Good genre naming requires  to look past superficial similarities, marketing buzzwords and presumptions and instead look at what's at the heart of the games and how it differs from the games who offer similar experiences. Dogmatism doesn't help, it's likely a game can be categorized in multiple distinct and equally acceptable ways. While I will use my "method" forward, the main purpose of this article was to encourage the reader about the words we use without much second thought.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Emelina, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

De-Centering Men From The Discourse

You know how men, cishet men especially, prioritize themselves in conversations, in political action, in social theory, in culture, always need to inject themselves into anything, even when their input is redundant or worse, ignorant; overestimate their value in social movements and demand catering to their whims?
This article  is not about that.
This article -- to be honest, rant -- is about how non-men knowingly or unknowingly center men into the discussions and how men somehow end up finding their way into the subjects they have nothing to do with, even when there are no men present in conversations. This isn't entirely surprising, because society centers cishet men, but it's still troubling how we end up reinforcing this, often as a weapon against each other.
Polyamory is not inherently queer, but it is deeply entangled with LGBTI+ communities, there are only spaces polyamory is practiced without ostracized. Polyamory is not enshrined within law, people can get into trouble concerning their social security, they can't talk about relationships without constantly getting bothered about how polyamory makes everything worse etc. However, whenever we see polyamory discussed, even among queer people the stereotype of "cishet men in open relationships" Realities of trans relationships, lesbian relationships etc. are made irrelevant, because we need to care about make extremely funny jokes about how horny and unfaithful men are.
Asexuality discourse is forever nailed into my head for this. It always comes to the same thing: Asexual people are always made to debate about how exactly oppressed asexual men are. We, non-men, have to defend the possibilities and cases that asexual men are troubled by society, instead of actually our problems. I shouldn't have to talk about men to validate my own struggles with asexuality, asexual women don't have to think about what men actually face to define their own identity. "Are cishet men queer?" is just politically correct way to dismiss asexual identity in general, it effectively misrepresents any arguments for asexualty to "CISHETS are not marginalized ksksksks!!", "Tumblr man thinks he is oppressed cuz he's a virgin lolll!!!" Even, cis asexual men did not face any problems at all, what should it effect the place of asexuality in my non-patriarchal identity?
Lesbians or even women's love in general just cannot evade men. There is a group of lesbians who think you can't call yourself a lesbian if you have ever thought a guy was cool. For something not about men, there are way too much talk about men and most comes from people who really pride how they are pure about being disinterested in men. On the other side of coin, whenever we get any kind of wlw representation, some very woke people always whine about "how this is made to pander to men." -- I still remember how people were so fast about these comments about over a kissing scene in a trailer -- or even just any female character, there are some who think it's any good to evaluate a visual design whether or not it would make straight guys horny. Sapphic women, non-binary folks, we can't just enjoy stuff. It's super progressive to always think about what men think about this, it is very cool to make men arbiters over media that is not even about men.
Sex work is exploitative and often deeply s, creating more avenues for giving power over men over anyone else. However, isn't there any emancipatory aspect to any kind of sex work ever, are there reasons why women might consider it anything other than last option? Perhaps they might even think their work is not all that bad and even something of value ? No, according to real materialists: These people does not exist, at all, literally everything exist for men. See, if they say women are victims here this becomes a progressive statement, even though they have deliberately erased all voices that might contradict the idea there is more to sex work than trafficking! Sex work exists only for men, "sexual liberation" is just another avenue for men, if you defend sex work you must be obviously a horny man. Sex work is bad because it removes agency of women, even though this outlook also cannot conceive a women's sexuality as legitimate anywhere outside of a formal relationship with a man.  Sure, women can have affection together, but only when they make sure literally no one can see it, or else it's exploitative!  Oh, it is just also a weird coincidence that a lot of men ranging from cranky socialist careerists to Mr. Pope man himself share the same opinions about sex work different vocabulary, and overtly reactionary groups were always behind crackdowns on sex work, but all critics of the "real-progressive-materalist-marxist feminism" must be horny men, or those liberal feminists who have no idea what they are talking about, because horny men defend something, and that's what it all matters.
It's pretty much same story with kink, it is always "misogynist men subjugates women". Kinks are not really my area, but I can see how many of my trans friends are into kinks at least a little, and it's clear it can be so much meaningful beyond "man horny", giving people spaces to explore their relationship with sex or even different part of their identities. It is just so convenient to act like things you are morally&aesthethically aganist are all done by "bad people".
There is an another sinister implication here. Look, I am usually not very fond of cis men either, but these rhetoric have a common rationale of men being categorically bad on the sole basis of being men, rather than society producing men in a particular way. How do you get to the conclusion "wlw is ruined because it makes them horny? Being a man is naturally worth moral condemnation, apparently,  but see! It is progressive because we are criticising a privileged group, never mind the reactionary conclusions of such essentialism.
I actually don't have very deep points to make here, I definitely know I am super annoyed at talking about men at every random topic. I just have a simple wish: Shut up about men so much, we don't need to consider them at issues that are not really about them. Stop trying to link identities to maleness to discredit them, stop trashing sexual activities because men happen to be also involved with them, stop centering men on discourse just to earn woke points.
This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Acelin, Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson, MasterofCubes, Makkovar, Otakundead and Spencer Gill.

Relaxing Lamentations of Rouge Warrior

Rouge Warrior(2009) is a military shooter where the player follows Dick Marcinko on his many adventures. It's based on self-insert novels of Richard Marchinko, an US Navy veteran. The game is remarked as unremarkable shooter by the most, but it's notable for Dick's one-liners and the credits theme which uses said one-liners
Regardless of how good the game is, I find the song to be deeply enjoyable and meaningful. Let us look at it deeper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVoyGUcXepc

Fuckin ninja style
Im gonna bring it to em
Im gonna show em what time it is.
Its fun to bring the noise
AH
you morons'll love this
Hope you assholes like fireworks

Dick is a covert-op soldier, so stealth is the bread and butter of his job. However, although Dick is quite capable at it, he doesn't really like sneaking. From first lines, he makes the operations very personal as he is "gonna show what time it is" and "it is fun to bring the noise", despite having no connection to many faceless enemies he kills. Also notable is the "ninja style", a rather cheesy description from a professional soldier like him.

OOH
Fucking commies getting in my way
Well surprise mutherfuckers!
Happy fucking birthday
Thats right Nighty-night you sweet piece of shit
Enjoy the ride, cocksuckers Have a nice trip
Boom time baby
Trick or treat
Looks like a party,
C'mon I got places to go, people to meet.
Assholes are everywhere
Fuckers are out in force
Hi ho, hi ho This fuckers gonna blow.

Although it contrasts with his deadpan voice, he is clearly having fun or at least does not really take the combat seriously. For him, this is often a game, just like US Army advertises itself as, but just as often, simple chores. There are two equally plausible readings. Either Dick sincerely enjoys war or as his cold voice suggests, he is too desensitized to see any pain and pretends to be in action flick to not get bored. However, it is pretty clear he takes particular delight in explosions, not even in a chauvinistic, or even masculine way, but more like the same way children enjoy doing mischief: "Hi ho hi ho", the childish search for a joy stands with a rather chilling contrast with a grizzly hyper-masculine warrior.

Anytime Anywhere Anyplace
Kickin ass and taking names
Who's the hardest motherfuckers around
HAH
Rock and roll, motherfuckers Rock and roll

He is the tough action hero, and in cartoonish way, but looking beneath, it's rather troubling. Because Dick actually doesn't really have a higher motive, an ideology or even blind patriotism. He just fights, "anytime anywhere anyplace". "Kicking ass, takin' names", but over the course of game, he just kills many, many nameless people. He, deep down, wants to find some meaning; so he inflates the importance of his actions. Unfortunately for him, his skills are rather unmatched, there are really no "names" to be his rival. Dick Mackenzie, is the ultimate subversion of edgy alpha hero. He is forever bitter, empty and tries to have some pleasure in the persona of a cheesy character and shiny "fireworks". Just like a child, he needs to constantly prove that he is the "hardest motherfucker around", he needs to get that affirmation, "HAH". Pay attention to the way he brings together random insults, he swears just for profanity itself, just like an adolescent child would do. Yet he is not a child, he is a middle-aged man, he can't truly act like one, he has only mere glimpses of that age "rock and roll". Perhaps, he never did a proper childhood himself, perhaps this is why he came to the path of killing nameless people in unknown places...

OOH AHHH
Hide and seek, motherfuckers
Anybody home? Daddy's here c'mon, glad to see me fuckers? *bang bang bang*
Send me the bill Motherf*cking c*cksuckers
Im over here fuckface!! (gunshot)
<Theres gonna be fucking asses bleeding all over the place>
Sorry, assholes, but your quiet day at the office is about to get severely f*cked up

He feels so empty that he actively desires the rush of a physical injury, particularly blood. He yearns blood, but particularly his own, "Anybody home" is another cheesy line on surface, but it really reveals his search for a rival, someone who might bleed his own asshole. It is followed by a particularly striking line. "Your quite day at the office" is something he will never get. He has a heroic life many people will get jealous, he is held as a masculine icon, yet all he wants inside "a quite day". He has torn apart by this very conflict, his desire for "quite day" is so strong, yet he detest being quiet. This is why he hates stealth, constantly talks and is loud as possible. Explosions, gunshots, anyway to make him possibly get hurt are his way to keep the screams of "quite day"s at bay. This is a contradiction he can never get away, he hates silence, but also frequently finds himself in needlessly dangerous stunts, so he might can have some peace, the only "quite day" he can ever have.

Anytime Anywhere Anyplace
Kicking ass and taking names
Whos the hardest motherf*ckers around, HAH?...
Gimmie a goddamn break!
But, he can't get an eternal rest normal ways, if he goes down, it needs to be epic and manly, "he is the hardest motherfucker", so he will continue to "kick ass and take names"
Good place to blow some shit up.
AH OOH MM AH HNNNGH
What the fuck was I doing again? Oh, yeah. F*cking sh*t up. (bomb sound)

Yet, he is getting old. And it is are catching up to him more and more strongly. Each kill, each pointless operation crushes what remains of Dick Mackenzie. He requires stronger and stronger stimuli, just as one can require stronger painkillers if they are overly dependant on them. In every bomb he detonates, there is more explosions and less anything else inside Dick's heart. What could he do in any given moment? "F*ckin shit up". A true murder machine, the perfect soldier, but barely anything human...

Goddamn, cock breath commie motherfuckers!
You fucking asshole You fucking pig farmers!
Drop dead motherf*cker, you fucking amateurs
I own your fucking souls fucking commie bitch
Yeah, some capitalism for you, pussy shitty pig
Time to move
I got bad guys to send to Commie Heaven
...

As typical of Cold-War era, his worldview is shaped by anti-communist propaganda. However, as I mentioned, he really doesn't care. The politics are just one-liners to him, he might just as well fight against USA, Nazis, zombies or his own parents and his ferocity, his cold demeanor would not change. In a way, he represents the players of shooter games. The main appeal of the shooters is shooting after all, we often don't care who we shoot. As we see here, this aversion to ideology can be just as, if not more dangerous than outright propaganda. Reducing "capitalism" to power of your army and "commie" to just another insult is a more insidious indoctrination than maintaining an illusion that capitalism is benevolent. Remember that, fascism often is also marketed as to be above ideology and purposes glory as the human achievement. Fascism expects you to carry about a lot of really abstract concepts, but is that really different than a man whom nothing matters besides some explosions, some epic kills, some badassary. Dick Mackenzie, the broken man, is really the model citizen of the class society under capitalism. And a true Edgy Manly Hero like him is really different the Great Man of the fascist ideal" . Notice that one of the insults Dick uses is "pig farmers". Not only "pig farmer" is a type of quiet life he can never have, but one also he seems himself above. He has a man destined for Greatness after all. But as we clearly see, the glory is just more and more of the same, to the point even being a Great Man loses its meaning. Perhaps being a nobody does not bring glory, but it does bring "a quite day in the office". Fascism promises many things, but never peace. Capitalism is also the natural enemy of the simple life. You can't be "a pig farmer", where you just work enough to feed yourself and your community. No, you have to be more and more productive, you need to optimize yourself, grow and grow forever, until we run out of everything it all gets empty. "Time to move", we have work to do. More people to shoot, it's just gun and a bad guy to blow. Personalities, emotions, thoughts, faith are all mere caricatures; just make things blow, get another kill, send another one to "Heaven". The place you can never reach, a quiet, peaceful place. But you are really cool at least, right?
The tune of the song itself confirms the same feeling. Dick might be a broken man, even his inner struggles became mundane. Despite the storms raging inside him, from outside he really is no different looking from an ordinary man, having a quiet day at his office; as if he had lived none of this, as he if he is just a grandfather trying to impress his grandchildren by telling adventures from bygone era, half-truth, half-fiction. Above all else, the adventures are fun to listen, despite whatever pain they hide inside, just like this very song itself; story of a broken man in a chill tune by colorful lines from a middle-aged man who is on a lunch break...
And, that's to me, what this song feels like!