Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "earthbound"

Last time I played Earthbound, I made it till fourth town before losing interest. This was many years ago. Now I'm in Twoson and I'm sure I'll make it to the end this time.

I honestly think that all else being equal, twelve is the best possible age for the main character. You're old enough to be a bit more independent of your parents and other authority figures, to run around on your own and get in and out of trouble, to manage yourself in a tight place and even get into fights. Yet at the same time you're so young as to still be growing into your own person, still figuring out who you are and what you want of life - the best time for character development - still possessing that blissful and carefree attitude we all once held on to, still knowing how to laugh and how to cry and how to love... and of course, there's something tragic about how you already must take up such a burden, when you should be out playing.

This may be the best thing I like about Harry Potter, in retrospect. He started out at about the perfect age, and we got to see him grow up too.

And of course it's entirely possible the whole adventure was just a whole bunch of make-believe. Done right - ambiguously enough, where it may or may not have been, or parts of it may or may not have been - it'd be a story worth Wolfe. Alas.

I wish I was a child again, only with the full wisdom and knowledge adulthood brought me. I never could appreciate it enough the first time around.

Virtually every human since the dawn of time has had their own definition for "Evil". Personally I like to pull the scope back a little - focus on the entire forest rather than individual trees, onto the label itself and those that would throw the word around.



The way I define "Evil" is a splash of vomit on your carpet.

You can argue about what exactly it smells like, and just what all those chunks in it are made out of. You can debate over the best way to scrub the carpet clean, and whether the carpet itself can be salvaged afterwards. You'll be reminded of the times before someone threw up, and you won't take those times for granted again if or when they come back. You might raise the question of who threw up to begin with, and whether they're seriously ill or just hungover. Indeed, some of the wiser of us may point out that each of us might barf out like this, under the right circumstances: none of us is free of stink.

All these things are what people like to talk about, but the more pertinent truth remains: it has to go. It has no value whatsoever, no redeeming qualities, no reason anyone should endure its presence. It stinks up the entire house. Somebody throws up, the whole house will go to emergency mode to clean it up and to make sure no more comes out.



So by labeling something as "evil" you make an objective, inarguable, unambiguous statement that they're the absolute scum of the earth with zero redeeming qualities, and have to be disposed of immediately. There can be no "balance between good and evil": any evil at all is too much. There can be no redemption or salvation: all you can do is wipe it away. This is very strong language and, needless to say, not to be used lightly.

One thing I'm glad of with modern fantasy literature is that it indeed uses this sort of terminology much less casually than it used to. I myself prefer the much more morally-grey Order and Chaos. But there are still places where the word can be worth throwing around. Sometimes you really just need to get rid of something.



Sometimes you really are just fighting a great big pile of puke.