Make your own DLC 'true' ending to your choice of entertainment.

[Trunkage]

-Brave New World:

I know these are supposed to be things we just throw out and not really points of discussion, but..

Spoiler

So, if you'll remember, Mustapha denied John the right to leave the world state and go live on an island with all the cool interesting people. His reasons for doing so are not stated explicitly, but it's very clearly to prove a point about their respective philosophies, which he succeeds in doing by driving John to suicide (although it's not clear if Mustapha meant it to go that far).

Like, this is the actual strength of Brave New World as a story compared to many dystopian science fiction stories. John is wrong, he's just outright wrong. His position is incredibly naive. He claims the right to be unhappy as a concept but can't deal with the reality of being unhappy. In fact, when viewed alongside his behaviour, his philosophy is clearly a weak justification for his own neurotic inability to allow himself to be happy.

Just because he's our protagonist and our everyman observer of this strange society doesn't mean he's right, and it certainly doesn't mean he deserves a happy ending he claims not to actually want.

Okay. I haven't read this since high school but...

Spoiler

I thought Johnny was also lamenting freedom. Also, a case of grass is greener. And he was a massive conservative unwanting change.

And also both sides were wrong. They kept demanding Johnny to act a certain way. I get angry and annoyed when someone treats me like this

Anyway Brave New World was the book that I liked that I was forced to read at school. Screw you, Great Expectations

Edit: Just read the posts further down. Soz. Also, this feels like a book club

 

[Trunkage]

Also, delete Skellige. It turned a great game into only a good one

It was the most visually interesting part of the game though, at least before Toussaint. What about it did you dislike? The general lack of major lore significance or did you find the questing bad? Was it the hopping into a boat for everything?

Most of it was a copy from the original area but NOW WITH MORE VIKING. It doesn't add much to the overall storyline. It feels undercooked. Also, tough looking vikings are actually nice is very overplayed. There were no outstanding characters in the area. Where were the Djikstra's or Thalor? The quest with the monks encourages you to be a bully becuase you might think someone is snooty. Yes boating is terrible. And I can only remember one quest that was interesting and the only interesting monster on the whole island. In fact, Skyrim did Skellige better.

I hate gating in games, so the $10k getting there was a barrier (see any comments about New Vegas where they gate the city off from you and also use the story as a gating system, making sure you get all the story elements before getting to the city. Or Pillars of Eternity. The whole thing. Just let me play a game how I want. If I screw up it my fault. Stop trying to make me not 'play the game correctly') that automatically agrivates me.

 

[Hawki]

Anyway Brave New World was the book that I liked that I was forced to read at school. Screw you, Great Expectations

As far as secondary school literature went, I got fairly lucky, in as much that I liked most of what I was assigned to read. Key exceptions were:

-The Tempest: I could at least appreciate most of Shakespeare's plays, but I really, REALLY dislike The Tempest...which you wouldn't think, because I've probably quoted this play more than any other in fan writing I've done.

-Heart of Darkness: Sorry Mr Conrad, I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't get into the book. Still, I did get to watch Apocalypse Now, so...

-Year 12 Journeys: As in, the 'theme' of the HSC year was journeys. Physical journeys, spiritual journeys, metaphorical journeys...gah!

 

[jademunky]

Also, delete Skellige. It turned a great game into only a good one

It was the most visually interesting part of the game though, at least before Toussaint. What about it did you dislike? The general lack of major lore significance or did you find the questing bad? Was it the hopping into a boat for everything?

Most of it was a copy from the original area but NOW WITH MORE VIKING. It doesn't add much to the overall storyline. It feels undercooked. Also, tough looking vikings are actually nice is very overplayed. There were no outstanding characters in the area. Where were the Djikstra's or Thalor? The quest with the monks encourages you to be a bully becuase you might think someone is snooty. Yes boating is terrible. And I can only remember one quest that was interesting and the only interesting monster on the whole island. In fact, Skyrim did Skellige better.

I hate gating in games, so the $10k getting there was a barrier (see any comments about New Vegas where they gate the city off from you and also use the story as a gating system, making sure you get all the story elements before getting to the city. Or Pillars of Eternity. The whole thing. Just let me play a game how I want. If I screw up it my fault. Stop trying to make me not 'play the game correctly') that automatically agrivates me.

I guess I was so happy to be getting out of the forests I overlooked the fact that I was leaving behind all the interesting characters, taking twice as long to get anywhere and fighting my own personal phobias every time I found treasure underwater.

And yeah, for New Vegas, the interesting parts were all outside Vegas itself. Pillars of Eternity was just fifty dollars of disappointment.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Lenina isn't genuinely falling for him though, or at least, not in the sense of how John sees love. He's in it for a genuine connection, she just wants casual sex.

Spoiler

It's very obvious throughout the book that the way she feels about him is increasingly at odds with the demands of her own society. There's a whole scene of her coworkers chiding her for getting hung up on one person when there are so many others. Heck, she comes back at the end, clearly still with feelings towards him and ready to forgive him, despite him having been violent towards her in the past, breaking every single conditioned impulse of her society. She both represents and offers every single thing he wants, and he cannot accept it because he is such a neurotic that the thought of getting what he wants sends him into a violent panic in which he is compelled to physically beat the object of his desire with a whip while she is screaming on the floor, just like the women of Malpais once beat his mother with a whip. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Like, you really thought this was the guy we were supposed to like and feel deserved a "happy" ending?

I wouldn't say that. John is resentful towards his mother, but it's not so much that she's miserable - it's that she's dying, that soma has ensured that she doesn't even care, and it's an example of the dehumanizing effects of the World State.

I mean, at this point I just have to start quoting..

Spoiler

Anger suddenly boiled up in him. Balked for the second time, the passion of his grief had found another outlet, was transformed into a passion of agonized rage.

"But I'm John!" he shouted. "I'm John!" And in his furious misery he actually caught her by the shoulder and shook her.
Linda's eyes fluttered open; she saw him, knew him ? "John!" ? but situated the real face, the real and violent hands, in an imaginary world?among the inward and private equivalents of patchouli and the Super-Wurlitzer, among the transfigured memories and the strangely transposed sensations that constituted the universe of her dream. She knew him for John, her son, but fancied him an intruder into that paradisal Malpais where she had been spending her soma-holiday with Pop?. He was angry because she liked Pop?, he was shaking her because Pop? was there in the bed ? as though there were something wrong, as though all civilized people didn't do the same."
"Every one belongs to every ?" Her voice suddenly died into an almost inaudible breathless croaking. Her mouth fell open: she made a desperate effort to fill her lungs with air. But it was as though she had forgotten how to breathe. She tried to cry out?but no sound came; only the terror of her staring eyes revealed what she was suffering. Her hands went to her throat, then clawed at the air?the air she could no longer breathe, the air that, for her, had ceased to exist.

The Savage was on his feet, bent over her. "What is it, Linda? What is it?" His voice was imploring; it was as though he were begging to be reassured.

The look she gave him was charged with an unspeakable terror?with terror and, it seemed to him, reproach.

She tried to raise herself in bed, but fell back on to the pillows. Her face was horribly distorted, her lips blue.
The Savage turned and ran up the ward.

"Quick, quick!" he shouted. "Quick!"

Standing in the centre of a ring of zipper-hunting twins, the Head Nurse looked round. The first moment's astonishment gave place almost instantly to disapproval. "Don't shout! Think of the little ones," she said, frowning. "You might decondition ? But what are you doing?" He had broken through the ring. "Be careful!" A child was yelling.

"Quick, quick!" He caught her by the sleeve, dragged her after him. "Quick! Something's happened. I've killed her."

Every single thing John does thinks or says in this moment is about him, his needs and above all, his unhappiness and guilt. He's a vicious, jealous, hateful little creature who resents his mothers moments of happiness (just as he resented them back in Malpais) because they don't revolve around him. Again, he is a neurotic, and I'm using that word very deliberately because the book displays an intimate understanding of what it means.

We can have sympathy with him to a degree, because he has had a hard life, but that's kind of the point. People who live hard lives don't always become good people, just as people who live easy and vacuous lives can't become good people. We need a caring society ("civilisation") to make us good, but we also need to be given space to be free. In terms of his actions and character, John is not an example of a healthy human being or the kind of person we're supposed to like or emulate. With apologies for the racial overtones in this extremely old story, being a savage is not a good thing, and it would be a profoundly reactionary point if it was.

As for Mond, I can't call him having an "extreme" position per se, in as much that Mond's position is that of the World State. Despite being an alpha, and as intelligent as you'd expect an alpha to be, Mond is ultimately a cog in the machine.

See, you've quite profoundly misunderstood his character if you think that's true.

Spoiler

Mond keeps bibles in his safe. He has long discussions with John about Shakespeare. He was a scientist who was once arrested and given a choice to be sent to an island (where he could have lived out a happy life continuing his passion for science surrounded by like-minded people) or to become a controller. He chose to become a controller, of his own free will. Now, there's a kind of supreme arrogance in appointing yourself martyr-king who rules for the "benefit" of everyone else without those people being able to make a choice in the matter, and that's why Mond represents an extreme position, and it's why he is wrong. But Mond is not a cog in the machine. He's a cog who was too big for the machine, but who decided the machine was a good thing even if he couldn't fit into it.

 

[Hawki]

Spoiler

It's very obvious throughout the book that the way she feels about him is increasingly at odds with the demands of her own society. There's a whole scene of her coworkers chiding her for getting hung up on one person when there are so many others.

Spoiler

Um...is it?

The co-worker thing (Fanny) comes up at the start, and Lenina makes no effort to say anything along the lines of "no, I like this guy, I'm going to stay with him." Lenina may have slightly more independence than betas (hinted at when she flashes back to when she woke up as a child to the conditioning), but her actions are still within what's expected of her. And even for John, her 'dating' with him (if such a word can be used) is still within the expectations of her society. She expects him to come in after the movie. She can't comprehend any of the courtship he shows her, and as soon as she does understand (finally) "hey, he likes me," it's straight into attempted sex. It isn't love, it's barely even lust, it's just in keeping with 'the game' (or whatever term Fanny uses).

Heck, she comes back at the end, clearly still with feelings towards him and ready to forgive him, despite him having been violent towards her in the past, breaking every single conditioned impulse of her society. She both represents and offers every single thing he wants, and he cannot accept it because he is such a neurotic that the thought of getting what he wants sends him into a violent panic in which he is compelled to physically beat the object of his desire with a whip while she is screaming on the floor, just like the women of Malpais once beat his mother with a whip. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Okay, I can't find my copy, but isn't it left up to interpretation at the end as to whether that girl is actually Lenina?

Like, you really thought this was the guy we were supposed to like and feel deserved a "happy" ending?

No, but not for the reasons given. John can't get a happy ending, because the world in which he exists prevents such a thing from happening. It's not really a question of 'deserving' a happy ending, because the framework of the story isn't set up for that. John is less a character and more a stand-in for the audience, in as much that he's as close to a 20th century human as you can get in this world, least as far as his attitudes go (albiet exagerated in areas). So when John dies, it's less a tragic ending for John, and more symbolic of the 'death' of the human spirit/culture/insert term here.

I mean, at this point I just have to start quoting..

Reads quote...

So, I'm not entirely sure how that invalidates much. You've highlighted certain passages, but that's not really conveying John as being neurotic, that's conveying his sense of grief. As in, the phrases you highlight are:

"And in his furious misery he actually caught her by the shoulder and shook her."

"He was angry because she liked Pop?, he was shaking her because Pop? was there in the bed ? as though there were something wrong, as though all civilized people didn't do the same."

"it was as though he were begging to be reassured."

"it seemed to him, reproach."

"I've killed her."

So, going through this, all I see is John being a son who's losing his mother, who's acting in a very human way. Who's partially reliving trauma over Pope. But, most importantly, John's actions, even within these highlighted phrases ("as though all civilized people didn't do the same"), is serving as a contrast to the World State. He's acting human. No-one else in this room is. We've already had the gaggle of clones (not called clones, but they might as well be) come in for "death conditioning."

Whatever John's flaws in this segment are, they're flaws that come from basic human nature - he doesn't want to lose his mother, and he's, understandably, acting like a child. In contrast, the flaws of the World State are on display, where familial bonds don't exist, where death is unmourned. The novel makes a point that hardly anyone actually visits the centre Linda's in because death isn't really such a big thing to the people of the World State.

In terms of his actions and character, John is not an example of a healthy human being or the kind of person we're supposed to like or emulate.

While that's true to an extent, John's still the result of the world he was born into. It's pretty clear that Linda wasn't the best mother in the world (which, in spite of all that, John clearly still cares about her, and is thus put off even more by the whole death conditioning thing).

Mond keeps bibles in his safe. He has long discussions with John about Shakespeare. He was a scientist who was once arrested and given a choice to be sent to an island (where he could have lived out a happy life continuing his passion for science surrounded by like-minded people) or to become a controller. He chose to become a controller, of his own free will. Now, there's a kind of supreme arrogance in appointing yourself martyr-king who rules for the "benefit" of everyone else without those people being able to make a choice in the matter, and that's why Mond represents an extreme position, and it's why he is wrong. But Mond is not a cog in the machine. He's a cog who was too big for the machine, but who decided the machine was a good thing even if he couldn't fit into it.

Yes, Mond dabbled in science. Mond could have been sent to an island. Mond became a world controller. Mond keeps Shakespeare in the safe.

None of this changes how Mond is still a cog. Whatever his personal thoughts, every action he undertakes is in service to the World State, even when it goes against his own personal desires. He gives the position of the World State at the end, and he clearly believes in the necessity of the position. Mond, for all his power and intelligence, is still 'trapped' by the system. Same way Bernard and Hermholtz are. If anything, Mond arguably has less freedom, because they at least get to go to an island, whereas he can't make the same choice now.

Also, on the topic of being neurotic, I'd say Bernard is a much better example than John. Bernard suffers in society, but he makes it clear as to how unhappy he is to Hermholtz, to the point where Hermholtz thinks (paraphrased) "oh just suck it up."

 

[the December King]

I just watched this, so: I would love to add some more compelling visual effects in the Zone (CG effects or otherwise) to Stalker (1979).

I understand that the lengthy pauses and imagery are meant to make us reflect, but I felt like it was almost... tedious. For me, there needs to be some more urgent and bizarre stuff mixed in with the slow pans and creeps on dilapidated ruins and water pooling. I'm not suggesting that the movie needs enhancements like the game, necessarily, but... well, Annihilation was a very, very similar film that capitalized on more bizarre, and terrifying FX, though I didn't find the characters quite as interesting as in Stalker, but on the other hand the nature of the anomaly seemed more purposeful in execution, and some of the ideas at work were exciting ( a fascinating movie, which I enjoyed slightly more than Stalker on first watch).

I'll be reading Roadside Picnic as soon as I'm able, which is the source material for the film (and was, I suspect, likely a heavy influence on the Annihilation books as well).

 

[Terminal Blue]

The co-worker thing (Fanny) comes up at the start, and Lenina makes no effort to say anything along the lines of "no, I like this guy, I'm going to stay with him."

Spoiler

An hour later, in the Changing Room, Fanny was energetically protesting. "But it's absurd to let yourself get into a state like this. Simply absurd," she repeated. "And what about? A man? one man."
"But he's the one I want."
"As though there weren't millions of other men in the world."
"But I don't want them."
"How can you know till you've tried?"
"I have tried."
"But how many?" asked Fanny, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously. "One, two?"
"Dozens. But," shaking her head, "it wasn't any good," she added.
"Well, you must persevere," said Fanny sententiously. But it was obvious that her confidence in her own prescriptions had been shaken. "Nothing can be achieved without perseverance."
"But meanwhile ?"
"Don't think of him."
"I can't help it."
"Take soma, then."
"I do."
"Well, go on."
"But in the intervals I still like him. I shall always like him."

This is not a subtle hidden subtext. It's text. The tragedy is that Lenina genuinely has fallen for John in exactly the way he claims to want, but he cannot accept her.. because he is a neurotic.

Okay, I can't find my copy, but isn't it left up to interpretation at the end as to whether that girl is actually Lenina?

Spoiler

The door of the helicopter opened, and out stepped, first a fair and ruddy-faced young man, then, in green velveteen shorts, white shirt, and jockey cap, a young woman.

At the sight of the young woman, the Savage started, recoiled, turned pale.

The young woman stood, smiling at him?an uncertain, imploring, almost abject smile. The seconds passed. Her lips moved, she was saying something; but the sound of her voice was covered by the loud reiterated refrain of the sightseers.

"We want the whip! We want the whip!"

The young woman pressed both hands to her left side, and on that peach-bright, doll-beautiful face of hers appeared a strangely incongruous expression of yearning distress. Her blue eyes seemed to grow larger, brighter; and suddenly two tears rolled down her cheeks. Inaudibly, she spoke again; then, with a quick, impassioned gesture stretched out her arms towards the Savage, stepped forward.

Why would a random woman, from a society of people who don't know how to cry because they cannot understand the concept of grief, be crying at him? Why would he recoil immediately upon seeing her when there are plenty of women in the crowd?

See, you're handed the tools to figure this one out yourself, but the answer isn't exactly a deep mystery, and again, consider the tragedy of this moment by imagining it from Lenina's perspective..

Who's partially reliving trauma over Pope. But, most importantly, John's actions, even within these highlighted phrases ("as though all civilized people didn't do the same"), is serving as a contrast to the World State.

Spoiler

Read the context again. "As though all civilized people didn't do the same" refers to Linda's perception, not John. Linda is having a Soma dream in which she is back in Malpais with Pope, her lover, and she is happy. John cannot deal with this because in his mind she's with Pope and not with him, so he violently shakes his dying mother to get her to recognise him. She does recognize him, but she doesn't understand why John is shaking her and why he's acting as if something is wrong. One minute she is away in a lovely dream, and the next she is pulled back to a reality in which she is dying in terror and pain, and all because John needs his mummy now. John needs reassurance! Poor John!

Linda is the one behaving like a "civilised person", both in her dream where she's enjoying a happy time with her lover, and in reality where she's choosing to die comfortably. She cannot understand why John is upset by this.

He's acting human. No-one else in this room is.

I mean, let's cut to the point. There are two levels to brave new world. On one hand, it's a warning about one possible direction society may progress. But on the other hand, it's a satire of a society that already exists and already existed in 1938. It's about the way the industrial society of the 20th century had already changed human nature, how mass production and consumer capitalism had become an overarching principle of society and had stripped things that used to have meaning of real value. The world state is extreme, but it reflects things that were already going on in 1938, and are still going on today, and many of those things cannot be straightforwardly disregarded as bad or evil. Most of us will die heavily medicated in hospital rather than screaming in pain like animals because it's more human.

If you read this book and came away with a simple reactionary metaphor about how civilization is bad and people need to suffer to be human, try harder, because there is a lot of complexity there which you'd have to be willfully ignoring to come to that conclusion.

 

[Hawki]

So, I managed to dig out my copy. So on that note:

This is not a subtle hidden subtext. It's text. The tragedy is that Lenina genuinely has fallen for John in exactly the way he claims to want, but he cannot accept her.. because he is a neurotic.

Except that isn't the case.

Lenina's fallen for John, in as much that she's 'fallen' for anyone else. The tragedy of Lenina, of the World State, is that she has no idea what love is, or at least, love as we'd define it. The point of the text is that Lenina's hung up over John, but she's hung up because he's acting so strange (to her), such as when they return from the feelies. And cut forward a bit when they're in her appartment, and as soon as John says he loves her, she literally digs her nails into his arm, later exclaiming:

"Sweet. Put your arms round me. Hug me till you drug me, honey. Kiss me, kiss me till I'm in a coma. Hug me, honey, snuggly..."

This isn't some declaration of true love, this is a declaration of true lust. Up to which Lenina has no idea of courtship or a permanant relationship.

Why would a random woman, from a society of people who don't know how to cry because they cannot understand the concept of grief, be crying at him? Why would he recoil immediately upon seeing her when there are plenty of women in the crowd?

See, you're handed the tools to figure this one out yourself, but the answer isn't exactly a deep mystery, and again, consider the tragedy of this moment by imagining it from Lenina's perspective..

So I went over the scene in the book again. There's certainly a strong chance that it is Lenina, but I can hardly call it definitive. She calls out for Henry (a character Lenina conversed with earlier in the book), but is Lenina still with Henry, or has Henry moved on to a new girl? We don't know, and I suspect that's kind of the point.

To answer your question about a random woman, bear in mind:

-We've seen people in this society express grief before (e.g. Bernard, Linda) and frustration (e.g. Mond and Lenina).

-By this point, John's a celebrity - it's possible that his plight has actually reached someone. Someone who could have a human reaction to his constant hounding rather than taking part in said hounding.

It's a fairly common trope for a protagonist to see someone that reminds them of X, triggering emotions, even if said person isn't exactly person X. Whether it's Lenina or not is pretty academic in the context of the moment - the moment itself is far more concerned with the orgy the people are in, and how it's driving John to madness. It's arguably even more impactful if it isn't Lenina, because it means that John's plight has reached someone, only in this world, at this stage, that doesn't mean anything, because the greater mass of people just want cheap entertainment. An orgy.

Read the context again. "As though all civilized people didn't do the same" refers to Linda's perception, not John.

Not really. The full line is "He was angry because she liked Pope, he was shaking her because Pope was there in the bed - as though there was something wrong, as though all civilized people didn't do the same?" If this is Linda's POV, the first two lines don't make sense, because she's too far gone to comprehend any of this. BNW uses loose third person, and it's quite happy to slip into omnipotent-type POV if the situation deems it. The writing here is one such example - the author is literally telling us how John feels, and posing a rhetorical question about "civilized people." While those sentiments are tied to Linda, it's the narrative itself that's doing the conveyance.

In essence, it's a case of where a perspective is offered from a character where we're expected to disagree with that perspective. "Civilized people" apparently drug themselves up, drag bunches of lab-born children for "death conditioning," visiting the dying for said conditioning while eating chocolate, and all in a world where it's established that hardly anyone comes to visit the dying because relationships mean so little. It's a version of civilization that we're expected to be repulsed at.

Linda is having a Soma dream in which she is back in Malpais with Pope, her lover, and she is happy. John cannot deal with this because in his mind she's with Pope and not with him, so he violently shakes his dying mother to get her to recognise him.

That's part of it, but a gross simplification.

She does recognize him, but she doesn't understand why John is shaking her and why he's acting as if something is wrong. One minute she is away in a lovely dream, and the next she is pulled back to a reality in which she is dying in terror and pain, and all because John needs his mummy now. John needs reassurance! Poor John!

Well, yes, poor John.

Linda's never been a good mother for him. As soon as they get back to civilization, she goes on soma. Dr. Shaw even makes it clear that she's shortening her life by going on the stuff (though states that they're lengthening it in a sense). So while John's actions are flawed, in as much that they're interrupting Linda's drug-induced bliss, she's still the one who's gone on such a drug-induced bliss without any other consideration. Which in part, is down to society wanting nothing to do with her.

John, for all his flaws, is demonstrating a human reaction. Linda, and the "death conditioning" surrounding her, isn't.

I mean, let's cut to the point. There are two levels to brave new world. On one hand, it's a warning about one possible direction society may progress. But on the other hand, it's a satire of a society that already exists and already existed in 1938. It's about the way the industrial society of the 20th century had already changed human nature, how mass production and consumer capitalism had become an overarching principle of society and had stripped things that used to have meaning of real value. The world state is extreme, but it reflects things that were already going on in 1938, and are still going on today, and many of those things cannot be straightforwardly disregarded as bad or evil. Most of us will die heavily medicated in hospital rather than screaming in pain like animals because it's more human.

Um, yes. And?

If you read this book and came away with a simple reactionary metaphor about how civilization is bad and people need to suffer to be human, try harder, because there is a lot of complexity there which you'd have to be willfully ignoring to come to that conclusion.

Which I didn't. I've never claimed that's the theme. It isn't even the point of contention, the point of contention is down to John, and how we clearly view his character differently.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Fallout 4:
Sure, you can't always engineer the peace you want, but having to destroy the institute every time? And as leader of the institute if you go that way, it would be nice to be able to steer it in a less "Stupid Evil" direction.
Basically more choice in terms of faction alliances, enemies, endings etc etc.

There is a lot of stuff already posted that I agree with here, but totally forgot about Fallout 4's shtick. I would probably even pay for an update simply titled "diplomacy 101, you idiotic fucks!" God, it was so annoying the only options were to sycophantly agree with their ignorance, or walk away and sycophantly agree with their rival's ignorance instead. The only truly fair action ultimately would be to destroy them all. No favourites.

[small]'Sycophantly' is a word now? Eh?[/small]

[small]Also would like the Mamma Murphy character to be an actual character and not a hollow cypher for "fictional drugs are bad, mkay." Regardless of how many times they literally saved my life. Err, in game.[/small]

 

[Trunkage]

Fallout 4:
Sure, you can't always engineer the peace you want, but having to destroy the institute every time? And as leader of the institute if you go that way, it would be nice to be able to steer it in a less "Stupid Evil" direction.
Basically more choice in terms of faction alliances, enemies, endings etc etc.

There is a lot of stuff already posted that I agree with here, but totally forgot about Fallout 4's shtick. I would probably even pay for an update simply titled "diplomacy 101, you idiotic fucks!" God, it was so annoying the only options were to sycophantly agree with their ignorance, or walk away and sycophantly agree with their rival's ignorance instead. The only truly fair action ultimately would be to destroy them all. No favourites.

[small]'Sycophantly' is a word now? Eh?[/small]

[small]Also would like the Mamma Murphy character to be an actual character and not a hollow cypher for "fictional drugs are bad, mkay." Regardless of how many times they literally saved my life. Err, in game.[/small]

You know they copied that from New Vegas right? Just replace nuke for Hoover Dam fight? Also you enter the same place despite being on four different sides of the war. It doesn't matter which side you pick, roboarmy is not in your hands and you no longer control the Mojave destiny.

Why didn't I just take control of the robots and sat them on the dam and force each side to negotiate? Wouldn't have that been easier? Wasn't that their purpose?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Okay, one more post, and then I say we stop derailing this thread with a near-century old book.

Spoiler

Lenina's fallen for John, in as much that she's 'fallen' for anyone else. The tragedy of Lenina, of the World State, is that she has no idea what love is, or at least, love as we'd define it.

None of these characters know what love is, including John, whose definition of love is literally Shakespearean, and who becomes fixated on Lenina literally seconds after meeting her because she's the first civilised woman he's met (just like his mother) and she smiles at him. Behold our protagonist! Truly no secrets of the human heart are left untouched by his mangled reading of Elizabethan drama!

Look, if John were an unimportant everyman protagonist who is there to provide an audience surrogate. Why is it important that we are told, very explicitly, about his horrible upbringing? The answer is because John's upbringing is incredibly important to who he is as a character. He is emotionally crippled by his upbringing, just as Lenina and the other inhabitants of the world state are emotionally crippled by theirs. They are crippled in polar opposite ways, but ultimately neither of them has experienced love "as we define it" and thus neither is capable of understanding it.

Based on the Linda's prognosis when they arrive in England, her death takes place, at most, 1-2 months later. That is the length of time John has known Lenina when he's ranting about virgin knots and marriage and other things he read about in Shakespeare but doesn't really understand. Hid idea of love isn't ours, it's ridiculous, it displays no more real understanding of love than she has. But, at the same time, both these characters admit to having feelings for each other which they've never had for anyone else. They have the potential to be more than their upbringings. The tragedy is that they don't manage it, and John is entire complicit in the reasons why they don't manage it.

"Sweet. Put your arms round me. Hug me till you drug me, honey. Kiss me, kiss me till I'm in a coma. Hug me, honey, snuggly..."

"Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny;
Love's as good as Soma."

It's a song. She's saying lines from the vapid lovesong she sung a few chapters earlier when she was happy and thinking about how much she liked him.

There's certainly a strong chance that it is Lenina, but I can hardly call it definitive.

So, let me put this way. Either it's Lenina, or Huxley is an incompetent writer who wrote an arc with no payoff and made his main character into even more of an asshole (by having him attack a random person who felt sorry for him) for absolutely no reason save to fake out and confuse the 99% of readers who reached the incredibly obvious and natural conclusion that it's Lenina, but then never told anyone about the fakeout thus making doing so pointless even on that incredibly infantile level.

Not really. The full line is "He was angry because she liked Pope, he was shaking her because Pope was there in the bed - as though there was something wrong, as though all civilized people didn't do the same?" If this is Linda's POV, the first two lines don't make sense, because she's too far gone to comprehend any of this.

Okay, let's dive in shall we..

The subject of the sentence is John, which suggests that we are seeing John's POV. However, the second half of the sentence refers to the first half, and specifically to John's actions. It doesn't break the rules of grammar to apply to a whole swathe of things outside of the sentence. John is the one who is behaving as though there is something wrong. He is the one who is acting as if all civilized people don't behave like Linda. John is reflecting on his own actions (and given the context, his actions as a child as well) and imagining how they must look to a civilised person like his mother.

Huxley never uses a authorial POV to give opinions or to tell us what we should feel or think. He only uses it to give us descriptions (sometimes loaded descriptions, but descriptions nonetheless). That rule is not being broken here.

It isn't even the point of contention, the point of contention is down to John, and how we clearly view his character differently.

You know, I'm just going to close out with a couple of lines from Mond's long speech at the beginning.

"And home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a rabbit hole, a midden, hot with the frictions of tightly packed life, reeking with emotion. What suffocating intimacies, what dangerous, insane, obscene relationships between the members of the family group!

...

Our Ford?or Our Freud, as, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters?Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers?was therefore full of misery; full of mothers?therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts?full of madness and suicide."

Remind you of anyone?

 

[Hawki]

Okay, one more post, and then I say we stop derailing this thread with a near-century old book.

Oh I see - you get to decide when the last post is.

Well, having read said post, I'll just agree to disagree.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Oh the derailing over Brave New World is ending? Well here I come to derail it over an even older book! Hahaha!

-The Tempest: I could at least appreciate most of Shakespeare's plays, but I really, REALLY dislike The Tempest...which you wouldn't think, because I've probably quoted this play more than any other in fan writing I've done.

As it happens I quite liked the Tempest, I liked seeing how themes on colonialism were represented in the time when colonialism was just starting to catch on. It probably helps that the other play we were doing at the time was The Duchess of Malfi which I found...messy

 

[Terminal Blue]

Oh I see - you get to decide when the last post is.

I get to decide when my last post is. I'll still read anything you post.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

This might be cheating slightly since the sequel trilogy isn't finnished yet, but i would make an alternate ending to TLJ where Rey joins Kylo to try to create a new way of the force that breaks with the dualism of the Jedi and Sith. Feels like it would be a much better setup for episode IX than the ending we ended up with

 

[Kyrian007]

Most of the examples I can think of aren't even DLC. It is an instance where I wish something had stopped, but instead continued and overstayed its welcome. Is that a thing, DLC that erases content? Like a DLC patch that quickly wraps up Bioshock after the Andrew Ryan scene? Because the last season of Babylon 5 needed that DLC. The last 4 seasons of the X-Files needed that DLC. Carnivale only needed to erase about 4 minutes of the final episode to be a perfectly self-contained story. What should we call that? Negative DLC, anti-DLC, stain-removal DLC?

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

Most of the examples I can think of aren't even DLC. It is an instance where I wish something had stopped, but instead continued and overstayed its welcome. Is that a thing, DLC that erases content? Like a DLC patch that quickly wraps up Bioshock after the Andrew Ryan scene? Because the last season of Babylon 5 needed that DLC. The last 4 seasons of the X-Files needed that DLC. Carnivale only needed to erase about 4 minutes of the final episode to be a perfectly self-contained story. What should we call that? Negative DLC, anti-DLC, stain-removal DLC?

I think the most appropriate name for such a DLC would be an "Editor's cut"

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

You know they copied that from New Vegas right? Just replace nuke for Hoover Dam fight? Also you enter the same place despite being on four different sides of the war. It doesn't matter which side you pick, roboarmy is not in your hands and you no longer control the Mojave destiny.

Why didn't I just take control of the robots and sat them on the dam and force each side to negotiate? Wouldn't have that been easier? Wasn't that their purpose?

I honestly did not know that. Never owned or completed it, only played about halfway through on a friend's copy a long time ago and remember the Vegas part of Vegas being so underwhelming that the desire to ever go back never materialised again. I assumed due to the amount of love it gets, surely the narrative side was spotless all the way through. That surely people don't maintain double standards when it comes to criticism of their darlings. Perhaps an incorrect assumption there, it would seem.

Edit: Would like to add another grievance a DLC would fix, and that is the recent Hitman titles and their bloody time-limited contracts where even if you buy the full game of the year edition all of them are still locked out cause 'oh diddums were you too poor to buy this shit as soon as it came out? Well fuck you, unwashed peasant!" (Ok, it's just my mind saying that, but no other game does this). They keep a whole menu dedicated to every one of the bastards purely so you can look over everything you'll never be able to access...see that cool looking Sean Bean assassination mission? Oopsie! Should've paid up sooner, fuckface...but we're still gonna dangle it here in the """complete""" version of the game as a reminder of your treacherous financial shortcomings.

Excuse the French. It's the only peaceful method of venting frustration whilst explaining.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

You know they copied that from New Vegas right? Just replace nuke for Hoover Dam fight? Also you enter the same place despite being on four different sides of the war. It doesn't matter which side you pick, roboarmy is not in your hands and you no longer control the Mojave destiny.

Why didn't I just take control of the robots and sat them on the dam and force each side to negotiate? Wouldn't have that been easier? Wasn't that their purpose?

I honestly did not know that. Never owned or completed it, only played about halfway through on a friend's copy a long time ago and remember the Vegas part of Vegas being so underwhelming that the desire to ever go back never materialised again. I assumed due to the amount of love it gets, surely the narrative side was spotless all the way through. That surely people don't maintain double standards when it comes to criticism of their darlings. Perhaps an incorrect assumption there, it would seem.

Not that it didn't have it's faults, I think that New Vegas gave the 3 different sides more believable motivations, goals and rivalries. You could understand what they wanted and why.

Trouble with 4 was that the main bad guy seemed both comically evil and incompetent. Yes, we have teleportation, advanced AI, we live in a complex that's basically fucking star trek, and what are we going to do with it? Fuck with a bunch of mud eating peasants and steal their rusty screws.
And everyone else was so deathly afraid of them that you could take over their home base, have all that knowledge and power and "nope, too dangerous, we gotta blow it up..."

Factions in NV were obstinate and unwilling to reason with each other. Factions in 4 were just straight up fuckwits.

Also robo army ending up in your hands and using them to take control of the dam was very specifically one of the endings. Not sure where Trunkage got that.