The horrors

Very resumed, Seaman is a 1999/2000 dreamcast game you groom a fish pet till he's ready for the world. The time runs the same as IRL, he talks to you and remembers what you said before and the 4th wall is just a glass.

Somewhere during the game he has an existential crisis, it goes like this:

— Some people say that, like most videogame characters, I'm not real and that I don't exist. Can you believe this? It's a bit of a shock, to say the least. I mean, if I don't exist, then what am I? Am I just some... Imaginary creature? I mean, do you think I exist?

— Well, at least you believe in me. Which is good, because I believe in you too. You probably can't imagine the feeling. The shock of being told you don't exist. It destroys everything you hold dear. Your reality becomes shattered. Why don't I exist? I'm living, I'm breathing and I'm thinking with my heart and soul. I tell you, I exist just as much as you do.

Then he gets a little depressed and don't talk to you for hours. He returns later:

— Ok, how about the Beatles then? Do you think they existed?

— Alright, you see? You've probably never meet these people but you know they existed because they're on television and in magazines. Well, the same goes for me. I too am on TV and in magazines and here you are even talking to me and thinking about me. So from that point of view, I exist.

— People, places and things exist only because you perceive them. When you see me and listen to me, I exist as a part of your consciousness. I become real! And because I can see you and hear you and smell you, you exist as part of my consciousness. And as I have a very limited attention span, once I forget about you, you will no longer exist.

I'm 14 and that's deepppp

Jokes aside, these lines never fail to move me. I can't help but think about how we are just brains riding a skeleton in a flesh suit. We can never know what things "really" are, the only way we get to experience the world is through our senses that are completely biased: Like how some people can't stand spicy food while others don't even feel it.

Is your teacher real? Is your mom real? How do you know that? There's no way to be sure. The only thing you can know for certain is that you exist. Everything else exists in your head, from your toes being chilly to your favorite Love and Deepspace LI. If you can control it or not, it's a discussion for another day.

The brain is a funny thing, it gives power to whatever it feels like.

First, we are presented with a bidimensional world, where Good is good and Evil is evil, and nothing in between. We know Alteon is good, Sepulchure is evil, and there's not a single doubt about it, it's just the nature of the world. That's what make The Hero fight, they were conditioned to believe that.

During the LoC saga we learn that yes, sometimes Good is evil and Evil can be good. Maybe because The Hero is being influenced by Drakath, maybe because without knowing something is already changing inside them.

After the 13 LoC incident and The Dragon of Time coming back, the game is actively throwing at our faces how Good can be utterly filthy. That meaning we don't see the world through The Hero's rose colored lenses anymore.

Current events are already a 360° from what we had in the beginning. It could be The Hero having that rebellious phase we all have when discovering we had been lied to all our lives, but they're not just The Hero.

We are seeing this side of Good ever since The Dragon of Time recovered just a teeny fraction of their memory, and as soon as it started they already had to be restrained. That makes me wonder how terrible really is Good in their eyes and what the hell they would do if they were given the freedom.