The Elder Scrolls: The Escape Scrolls

We all know the game series The Elder Scrolls, and those who don't, have probably been living in a hole for a couple of years (More than 10.) The popularity of this series severely rose with the release of Morrowind, the third installment in the series, and even further with the fourth: Oblivion.

The Elder Scrolls consists of the most awesome RPG elements known to man. Common for all the games is that you start as a prisoner in a holding cell, without a clue as to what you have done or why you are there. Once you escape, which you definitely will, you can roam around in a huge world and do as you very well please.

Now why would I wanna do that?
Because it is fun?
Definitely!
Because I am bored?
Supposedly.
Am I a fan?
Yes, indeed!

But why do millions of people succumb to the need of playing such a game, and why is it so popular?
The answer to that would be: Because it is an open world, where you can do as you please.
But can't we also do that in, say, real life? YES, WE CAN!
The difference is that in the world of Elder Scrolls, there are no REAL consequences. If you die, you just load. Something is too hard? Alter the difficulty! Too mundane? Use magic! In a bad mood? Assassinate some innocent civilians!

This game is ultimate form of video game escapism. You can even create your own content with a fancy toolset they give you for free. People are free to create their own textures and meshes such as these:

Interestingly enough, it was a chick who made this. I bet you thought it was a guy!

Anyway, so if someone wants to ignore the real world, and just bask in glory of being sole person the entire world revolves around for a couple of hours a day, The Elder Scrolls are just made for you. Even on their website they advertise, saying: "Be another person, in another world." It's the perfect opportunity to earn some dead hours! And who would you rather be?

Sheldon the Garbage Man, having to deal with bills and relationships - or Timmy the Great (I came up with that name,) Who own his own bests the Daedric lord, Mehrunes Dagon, with 100% chance of success, but still made so that it seems like an achievement?

The latter? I thought so!
So do I have a problem with escapism? No! I think it is great! I think dead hours are the best kind of pass-time in the world! Given my "Aesthetic" way of life, I think that this is awesome and that there are few things better to do.

Applaud for Bethesda studios! Really!

People dislike truth

Our entire law system is build on honesty. You have to do good things and in court you always have to be honest. Truth and justice and all that crap. Being honest is even considered a virtue. The the funny thing just is that people HATE hearing the truth about themselves. The primary reason for this is that we don't actually like that part of us. Maybe we don't want other people to know it, or ourselves to know it, because we would seem either evil or weak in the eyes of others.

I borrowed a game from a friend of mine, or rather, he put it in my hands and said: PLAY!

This game is called Persona 4, which is awesome, by the way. The game is about a bunch of teenagers who becomes capable of entering TV's and end up in a different world, where so called "shadows" are on the ready to attack them. Fortunately, our heroes are capable of summoning an avatar of their so called "dark side" (Which is the truth about themselves) called a "Persona." 

But there is a catch. before they are able to use their personas, they need to accept their "shadow selves." That is all there is required. But this is easier said than done, 'cause their shadow parts are mean and cruel. They still speak the truth though. They have the virtue of honesty. They are open about the weakness of their counter-part and what annoys them. From a freudian point of view, one might call them the subconsciousness. 

The point is that they can't accept their shadow selves to begin with and that is exactly what happens in real life. There is a part that we don't wish to acknowledge, deep inside us. It might be an opinion, an interest or some physical. Personally, this isn't such a big problem for me, I'd gladly admit that I am weak, or lazy or unattractive, if people point it out with some reasonable arguments. It's not a problem for me, since I am completely satisfied with who I am and accept that I am not perfect. This is partly because that whilst I realize that I am very "cruel" when it comes to some points, I simply don't care. It have been a problem for me, though. When I found out that I was going to be bald in a couple of years from now, I felt really bad about it, and I hated when people commented on my thin hair. That part of me is however gone. Which is why it pisses me off that I am still not able to summon an avatar capable of firing off lightning bolts!

So Persona got me thinking and I could actually recognize this kind of dilemma. After my en devours in bizzaro-TV-land, I was in a real-life sports competition, where we were in teams of 4-6. My group came in the 5th place, which means that we lost and so did the group of a guy I knew who were also participating. Th judges had a reward for everyone though, which consisted of a small candy-bars. Of course the winners received more. Both I and the guy I know who was also there, insisted on not receiving anything because of the fact that we lost. Still, later I see him gnawing on one anyway. At that point I ask him, why he might have changed his mind? He said, that since one of the winners offered him one, he couldn't say no. So he couldn't say no because a different person than the judge offered him one. I believe that he shrugged it off as being rude to say no, which, according to my observations, it wouldn't be, especially not if he told him about his principle of "loser gets no reward". Therefore I asked him: "So you said yes because you really wanted the chocolate." This made him very angry and needless to say, he gave me a childish reply, that made no sense whatsoever.

I believe that he became angry, because he was faced with the truth. He gave in. Craved. Having the tasty chocolate dangled in front of him twice was more than enough, and thus he decided to just dumb his principle and eat it. That is most definitely a sign of weakness, which I believe is why he didn't wanna face it. His "darker self" was smearing the fact in his face and he chose to neglect it. But I believe that we can learn a lesson from Persona 4. If we can't accept ourselves, we will grow weak and our we will in fact be defeated time and time again by ourselves (Which kinda seems humiliating.) But if we can accept ourselves, we will grow stronger (evidently without a cool avatar, though.)

It all boils down to whether we want to be weak, or acknowledge that we have a "darker side" and know that we are so much more than that. If we want to evolve and grow to acceptable levels, we need to be able to accept ourselves. Our "Full" selves.