I should really track down a copy of Ico.
I beat Prince of Persia today. The ending took me by surprise.
So... the first ending was what I expected. Elika's life was linked to Ahriman. Sealing him away meant her death. Presumably she's known this all along. It's certainly hinted at. There were credits. But the game doesn't really end. You can still do more. But you can't get to any of the levels because you need Elika's jump skill. You can't jump off any of the high ledges because Elika's not there to save you. You can't climb back to where you lost your donkey. You can free Ahriman.
This ending itself is fairly vague. We don't find out if they get away. Elika comes back to life, and the prince basically grabs her and runs. There's a voice over. Which is odd because I didn't notice any other voice overs in the game. It's probably important, but I haven't quite figured out what it means.
The disregard the prince shows for the terms on which Elika wants to live is highly disturbing. Throughout the game he sort of tries to talk her into living for herself. He makes a big deal about fulfilling one's own dreams. It's pretty clear that Elika's lead a very duty-bound life. But she does have strong feelings about the seal on Ahriman. Her sacrifice is the one thing she has chosen, and it's taken away from her by the man who helped her fight for that choice. Because it's not what he would have chosen for her. It's such a betrayal. It's all the more disturbing because we do live in a society where women's wishes in regards to their lives are often disregarded. North Dakota has placed fetal rights above the rights of women to control the contents of their own bodies. The Italian prime minister condemned those who wanted to take a brain dead woman off life support in accordance with her wishes because she's still ovulating. These are just a couple of examples of how we don't get to live on our own terms.
I did something I rarely do. I left my safe little feminist gamer bubble, because no-one was talking about this game, and I sought out other people's takes on the ending. I found this titled Prince of Patriarchy. On a not explicitly feminist site! Perhaps there is hope for our geeky little sub-culture yet. It's well worth the read.
Like the author of the Experience Points post says, just because Prince of Persia has these patriarchal issues, doesn't mean it's a bad game. It is believable. The ending brings up all these very important issues. This can be a good thing. But it does it in a way that is just so vague that I'm not sure what the makers are trying to say about those issues. Are they saying that it's hopeless? That even when the next generation recognizes the sexism of the older generation and actively fights against it, when things get hard we'll just slip right back into the old power imbalances? Were they trying to make some completely different point about darkness or evil being needed in the world, or inconsequential, and the fact that the method of doing so just happened to take away the agency of one of the better female characters to grace a game console was simply unfortunate? Were the creators just too attached to Elika to kill her off? I honestly can't tell.
I don't think the ending was completely irredeemable. It's just difficult to really judge because it's so unclear. I'm not a big fan of multiple endings in games. But I think this is a case where it would have enhanced the game. They sort of did it, in that you could just turn the game off after the final boss. But you know there is more. Turning it off isn't making a decision about how the story goes; it's running away from the story because you don't like where it's going. This game needed an ending like the one in the Little Prince. You know, that french children's book. In my high school all the foreign language classes had to read it. In the end the prince is bitten by a snake. He claims the snake bite is how he's going home, and then he dies. The book asks the reader to decide for themselves if the prince has gone home or died. Both answers are correct, but which one you choose says something important about who you are. A book can ask us to consider these questions, but it can't make us consider them. A game can. It seems to me that the opportunity to really force the player to make the decision between freeing Ahriman thus saving Elika, and just finding your donkey and moving on with your life. Both possible endings are tragedies of course. But which tragedy you choose says a lot about you.
I assume they will make a sequel. Which may be why there's such a half-heart attempt at multiple endings. You can't make a sequel for each ending. So what usually happens is there's one "good" ending, and that's the ending that gets continued. The "bad" endings are usually just a punishment for poor game performance. Since in all other aspects Prince of Persia has shied away from punishing for bad performance, it makes sense that they would shy away from this punishment as well. The ends I want would only work if this turned out to be a stand alone game with no continuation. I hope that in the almost inevitable sequel the ending is explained. Or... justified in some way. Perhaps the prince figured out something about Ahriman, and he just can't explain it to Elika right then because they kind of need to run for their lives. I'm terrified that the sequel will reach Warrior Within levels of god-awful terrible badness. Elika, furious over all the men in her life betraying her, may become a dominatrix in a metal thong which has continuity errors. She could exact revenge with her hoards of former sex workers who find their new job just as stimulating as their old one. Meanwhile, our hero, the prince could decide the root cause of his problems is being too nice, and will instead engage in behaviors that really would probably just exacerbate things. And I will loose faith in humanity. No pressure, Ubisoft.
Mostly likely I'll still be playing Prince of Persia for a while. The game play really is very fun. And I have more seeds to collect. Plus I'd like to try playing the levels in a different order. It's sort of nebulous, in that you pick the order you play in, but yet the story seemed so linear to me. I'd like to explore how they pulled that off. There may be more long posts from me regarding a certain princely vagabond.
John and I also went and saw Coraline. I highly recommend that you all go out and see it. It's gorgeous and does the original book justice. Not to mention the animation is top-notch.
So... the first ending was what I expected. Elika's life was linked to Ahriman. Sealing him away meant her death. Presumably she's known this all along. It's certainly hinted at. There were credits. But the game doesn't really end. You can still do more. But you can't get to any of the levels because you need Elika's jump skill. You can't jump off any of the high ledges because Elika's not there to save you. You can't climb back to where you lost your donkey. You can free Ahriman.
This ending itself is fairly vague. We don't find out if they get away. Elika comes back to life, and the prince basically grabs her and runs. There's a voice over. Which is odd because I didn't notice any other voice overs in the game. It's probably important, but I haven't quite figured out what it means.
The disregard the prince shows for the terms on which Elika wants to live is highly disturbing. Throughout the game he sort of tries to talk her into living for herself. He makes a big deal about fulfilling one's own dreams. It's pretty clear that Elika's lead a very duty-bound life. But she does have strong feelings about the seal on Ahriman. Her sacrifice is the one thing she has chosen, and it's taken away from her by the man who helped her fight for that choice. Because it's not what he would have chosen for her. It's such a betrayal. It's all the more disturbing because we do live in a society where women's wishes in regards to their lives are often disregarded. North Dakota has placed fetal rights above the rights of women to control the contents of their own bodies. The Italian prime minister condemned those who wanted to take a brain dead woman off life support in accordance with her wishes because she's still ovulating. These are just a couple of examples of how we don't get to live on our own terms.
I did something I rarely do. I left my safe little feminist gamer bubble, because no-one was talking about this game, and I sought out other people's takes on the ending. I found this titled Prince of Patriarchy. On a not explicitly feminist site! Perhaps there is hope for our geeky little sub-culture yet. It's well worth the read.
Like the author of the Experience Points post says, just because Prince of Persia has these patriarchal issues, doesn't mean it's a bad game. It is believable. The ending brings up all these very important issues. This can be a good thing. But it does it in a way that is just so vague that I'm not sure what the makers are trying to say about those issues. Are they saying that it's hopeless? That even when the next generation recognizes the sexism of the older generation and actively fights against it, when things get hard we'll just slip right back into the old power imbalances? Were they trying to make some completely different point about darkness or evil being needed in the world, or inconsequential, and the fact that the method of doing so just happened to take away the agency of one of the better female characters to grace a game console was simply unfortunate? Were the creators just too attached to Elika to kill her off? I honestly can't tell.
I don't think the ending was completely irredeemable. It's just difficult to really judge because it's so unclear. I'm not a big fan of multiple endings in games. But I think this is a case where it would have enhanced the game. They sort of did it, in that you could just turn the game off after the final boss. But you know there is more. Turning it off isn't making a decision about how the story goes; it's running away from the story because you don't like where it's going. This game needed an ending like the one in the Little Prince. You know, that french children's book. In my high school all the foreign language classes had to read it. In the end the prince is bitten by a snake. He claims the snake bite is how he's going home, and then he dies. The book asks the reader to decide for themselves if the prince has gone home or died. Both answers are correct, but which one you choose says something important about who you are. A book can ask us to consider these questions, but it can't make us consider them. A game can. It seems to me that the opportunity to really force the player to make the decision between freeing Ahriman thus saving Elika, and just finding your donkey and moving on with your life. Both possible endings are tragedies of course. But which tragedy you choose says a lot about you.
I assume they will make a sequel. Which may be why there's such a half-heart attempt at multiple endings. You can't make a sequel for each ending. So what usually happens is there's one "good" ending, and that's the ending that gets continued. The "bad" endings are usually just a punishment for poor game performance. Since in all other aspects Prince of Persia has shied away from punishing for bad performance, it makes sense that they would shy away from this punishment as well. The ends I want would only work if this turned out to be a stand alone game with no continuation. I hope that in the almost inevitable sequel the ending is explained. Or... justified in some way. Perhaps the prince figured out something about Ahriman, and he just can't explain it to Elika right then because they kind of need to run for their lives. I'm terrified that the sequel will reach Warrior Within levels of god-awful terrible badness. Elika, furious over all the men in her life betraying her, may become a dominatrix in a metal thong which has continuity errors. She could exact revenge with her hoards of former sex workers who find their new job just as stimulating as their old one. Meanwhile, our hero, the prince could decide the root cause of his problems is being too nice, and will instead engage in behaviors that really would probably just exacerbate things. And I will loose faith in humanity. No pressure, Ubisoft.
Mostly likely I'll still be playing Prince of Persia for a while. The game play really is very fun. And I have more seeds to collect. Plus I'd like to try playing the levels in a different order. It's sort of nebulous, in that you pick the order you play in, but yet the story seemed so linear to me. I'd like to explore how they pulled that off. There may be more long posts from me regarding a certain princely vagabond.
John and I also went and saw Coraline. I highly recommend that you all go out and see it. It's gorgeous and does the original book justice. Not to mention the animation is top-notch.