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In last week's episode we talked about "Dark Souls"
and the Soulsian.
Let's see what you had to say.
So first things first, I just want
to say that all of the conversations that
happened on the subreddit and on YouTube and Facebook
were amazing.
It was a pleasure getting to read all of your comments.
They were so good, and so smart, and really interesting.
And I just had a really great time.
Not that I don't usually have a great time,
but I had an exceptionally great time.
So I just wanted to say thanks for saying so many
smart and thoughtful things.
It really makes me want to teach a genre studies
course using "Dark Souls" as the main branching-off point.
So any universities out there looking to hire someone,
you just let me know.
Cesar Samuel on the subreddit wrote a really great comment
about Dostoevsky's "The Idiot", and its relationship
to "Dark Souls", and the importance
of sort of seeing beyond death or being
able to see past the finality of death,
and kind of seizing the importance of the work
that you are doing without having
this sort of vague, menacing end point in mind.
And I think that this is a really interesting metaphor
for "Dark Souls".
And there's a really great response
from DelJ, who agreed and talked about how that fits
thematically within "Dark Souls",
and talks about the crestfallen warrior archetype.
And I haven't read "The Idiot" in a really long time,
but I am currently reading "Crime and Punishment".
And I actually just got to the portion of the book
where Porfiry confronts Raskolnikov and sort of talks
about the importance of suffering,
and how some people need to suffer,
and that this is how they find value
in themselves and in the world, and that it's good for them,
and that maybe Raskolnikov needs to suffer in some way.
And I just-- yeah, this was-- it all sort of came together
at a great moment.
Crime Thug writes a really great comment
about-- not "Dark Souls", but a video game that is, arguably,
almost totally at least the opposite
of "Dark Souls", "Animal Crossing",
and about how it also could be seen
to organize its own precursors.
And I just wanted to point this out,
because I think this is a really great and interesting comment,
and a place that I did not expect the conversation to go.
I will put a link to this one and all the others
in the doobly doo.
[INAUDIBLE] comment focuses on something
that I didn't even consider when writing the script, which
is the physical aspect of playing "Dark Souls",
and that difficulty comes from combat.
But the sort of basement level of that difficulty
is actual-- you know, the physical manipulation
of a controller.
And we talked a little bit about "Dark Souls", or the Soulsian,
being inherently visual in a way that the Kafkaesque is not.
But it is also inherently physical.
And they talk about the "Dark Souls" board game, which--
and whether or not that will be the "Dark Souls"
of board games in a way beyond, sort of, just by title.
And I was actually having a conversation
with my girlfriend about a speculative "Dark Souls"
pinball machine.
Like, what would a "Dark Souls" pinball machine look like?
Because I think the thing that we were trying to get at was,
was this idea a physicality?
What would you have to do, what would you
have to manipulate with a pinball machine
to make it "Dark Souls", like beyond just putting
a bunch of knights on it and putting some swords in there?
And this is a thing that I've been thinking about a lot.
My gut right now says at least more than one button
on each side of the pinball machine.
SciFi39 writes a really great comment
that says that if anything, "Dark Souls"
is the Kafka of video games, and does a really great kind
of thematic analysis to show how those two
things-- beyond the kind of organizing their own precursors
idea-- have a lot in common.
They have a lot that they share between them.
And yeah, I just thought this was super interesting.
JBantha-- did you consider doing a run of the episode
with no armor, just completely naked?
In all seriousness though, there was a moment
when I was putting this episode together,
where I had considered having to do the episode-- having
to deliver the script-- in one go,
and if I messed it up, having to go back to the beginning
and then work my way forward.
But I didn't want to put Morgan through that torture.
You're welcome.
MORGAN: Thank you.
So but this raises the question,
I think-- what is the "Dark Souls" of YouTube channels?
Oh, never mind.
[INAUDIBLE] writes a really great comment
that is a two cents definition of the Soulsian,
the first sense being a little bit
more aesthetic and the second sense being a little bit more,
kind of affect-oriented.
And I would say that there might even
be a second part to the second sense, or maybe a third sense,
that beyond the appreciation of difficulty,
there's kind of-- the difficulty works as a key to content
or understanding, and that the content and understanding works
as a key to the difficulty-- that they both kind of unlock
or expand one another, in a certain way.
But yeah, I think this is great.
Joshua Bell lays out a bunch of different aspects
of the Soulsian, beyond difficulty, and ways
that you may value something that is Soulsian in some way,
but talks about how for him, the main part is the idea
that people are kind of in it together.
There's a lot of sharing of information.
There are a lot of ways for you to share that information--
both in-game and out of game.
And this made me think about the fact
that we didn't really talk about PVP or PVE versus PVP
as it relates to "Dark Souls", and how that provides
an additional layer of, I think, complexity and involvement
and affect in the game.
And this is something that Adam Telfer
talks about a little bit in his comment from the Facebook
page-- that in a way, he talks about how "Dark Souls" is kind
of like the American dream, that hard work will pay off
in the end-- but that in "Dark Souls",
it does actually, maybe, tend to pay off if you really stick
with it, whereas there's no guarantee that that is
the case in real life, and that there
is an additional layer of togetherness
that kind of-- that is channelled by that idea
and is channeled in "Dark Souls".
And I think that that's an aspect of this
that a lot could be said about.
Brett Shields-- I'm going to be completely honest with you.
I didn't even look it up, because the first time I ever
heard it was on a podcast.
So I just assumed that the person who was saying it
was saying it right, because they seemed smart.
RC3651 uses a word to describe "Dark Souls" that would never
have occurred to me, but I think makes sense
in the sort of context of its fairness,
and that word is respect-- that there
is a certain amount of respect that "Dark Souls" gives
to its players.
It sort of gives them, I think, credit.
It gives them the benefit of the doubt.
And I think that that also relates
to the stuff we were talking about before, with Joshua
Bell's comment and Adam Telfer's comment about people
kind of being in it together.
I think "Dark Souls" assumes that if you get stuck,
you can use the game to help you.
But you can also use the world to help you.
And I feel that that is maybe part of "Dark Souls" in a way
that it's not in other games.
So yeah, I think respect is an interesting way
to render this idea.
Crocalu, so this is a multi-part response.
Actually, Morgan is the one who speaks French,
and he helps me a lot with pronunciation.
And I would embarrass myself even more
than I do now, saying things incorrectly without his help.
However, [INAUDIBLE] is Latin, it turns out-- not French.
And even though I studied Latin for quite a while,
I still somehow managed to mess this up.
So thanks, thanks for letting me know.
Shane Tilton, longtime friend of the show,
great commenter-- writes very, very smart things,
is a very smart dude-- wrote what
I am going to deem the "Dark Souls" of comments
left on a video that is about the "Dark Souls" of things.
So I'm just going to read Shane's comment,
because I love it.
Shane Tilton-- I could be way off on this,
but an intellectual creative work
can be both Kafkaesque and Soulsian,
as one represents a thematic depiction
and type of understanding of the world-- Kafkaesque--
while the other represents the structure of the world
and the functionality of the objects within the world--
Soulsian.
There's not a sense of a rhetorical Soulsian
view of the world, as the language
is secondary to the effort of the actor within the world.
The Gothic thematic itself is not Soulsian,
as the wrapping of the world is not that rewarding by itself.
I think Soulsian is a type of Sisyphean effort,
if Sisyphus could choose the correct path out
of millions of paths and lock the stone into place
at the top of the hill.
If we still-- if we had balloons left from the episode we just
shot, I would drop them.
I love that comment.
And finally, a list of things that
are the "Dark Souls" of other things.
Cue the music.
Lay's Classic are the "Dark Souls" of chips.
Lars von Trier is the "Dark Souls" of filmmakers.
Kubrick is the "Dark Souls" of directors, maybe.
"Ulysses" is the "Dark Souls" of books.
A lot of votes for "Ulysses" as the "Dark Souls" of books,
and I'm going to say that I'm not-- I
don't know if I'm entirely on board with this.
I think for me, Merleau Ponty-- "The Phenomenology
of Perception", which we quoted in our Deadpool episode--
might be the "Dark Souls" of books.
This is highly subjective, but for me it
has the same effect of I read it, I'm very, very challenged
by it.
I work very, very hard to understand it.
I move very slowly.
I repeat things over, and over, and over again.
But I always make progress.
And the progress always gets me into that like flow state, like
and then suddenly four and a half hours is gone,
and I have to go to bed.
So yeah, but "Ulysses", I can understand why.
I can understand why.
I get it, I get it.
OK.
Back to the list.
Technical death metal is the "Dark Souls" of music.
I love that.
Finishing Monopoly is the "Dark Souls" of tabletop games.
True.
Removing the free parking house rule
is like choosing a ranged class.
Exercise is the "Dark Souls" of health.
Running is the "Dark Souls" of exercise.
"Dark Souls" is-- no, the "Dark Souls" of literature
is clearly "Blood Meridian".
Yeah, sure.
Thomas [INAUDIBLE] is the "Dark Souls" of authors.
David Lynch and/or [INAUDIBLE] are the "Dark Souls"
of film directors.
And flossing is the "Dark Souls" of personal hygiene.
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