So I just finished my first “Tales of” game because I have ran out of Final Fantasy’s for the moment. JRPG’s (Japanese Role Playing Games) Always love to be as philosophical and edgy as possible, and a lot of the times, you realize that the creators of these games are not philosophers, but male programmers that think they are being philosophical and edgy. Tales of Zestiria was an absolute mess of vague plotlines, unexplained lore, and forced ethics. However, the game did do something that I have not seen before in a video game, which was to put tangible redemption at the forefront of the game. Allow me to explain because I believe that their attempt at what they did made the game fascinating, yet also impossible to pull off. This philosophical conflict in this game then applies directly to our lives of Christians today, hilariously well (if you can bare through this entire post).
The main premise of the game was that the World was succumbing to “malevolence”, a mix of feelings including hopelessness, rage, and hate. Those that fell to malevolence became “hellions” or just general monsters. This was countered by the “Shepard” a person of innocence and hope that gained the power to fight and quell the malevolence. This premise is vastly different from a typical RPG where there is the good guys and the bad guys at war. In this case, it is good, fighting to remove a badness from the World. Defeating hellions redeemed people/animals/plants/etc. so they could go back to living their normal lives.
Now this is a video game, and most games (especially RPGs) to make them fun, revolve around a combat system. Therefore, to quell malevolence, you must defeat them in battle. So to some extent this created a family friendly loophole where you are not killing everything in sight, but bringing hope through fighting. This system though, is where I believe the problems began and why the morality of this game couldn’t reconcile with itself.
To make matters more difficult, there were instances with some of the more major enemy characters that they were either “so consumed with malevolence” or “had no malevolence but their outlook on life was so busted” that they only solution the main party had was to kill them. The game had drawn a line as to where redemption was no longer viable, and the solution was death.
This was important, as the main villain of the game, was cursed by the failed previous Shepard, and was given a life of immortality while he poisoned everything he touched. His hopelessness to never die turned him into the “Lord of Calamity”, the being that was spreading malevolence across the world in hopes that if everything dies, he might also die.
The “answer” that the protagonist collects over the course of the game, was that to defeat him, he must first redeem him back to a human, then kill him. The Shepard’s resolve in doing this for the good of the world is what prevented him from becoming a Hellion himself when he chooses to murder the villain in cold blood at the end of the game.
If you are still following, the plot gets even weirder, however, I won’t burden you with it. I have just tried my best to refine it down to one important core, and this core is extremely prevalent in our World today. In Christianity, there is a need for grace. This grace comes from Christ and creates an immovable bridge between the Creator and his Creation. We are told in Christianity, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, yet with the Life and Resurrection of Jesus, we all now have a lifeline back to good standing with God.
However, so much of our Christian rhetoric today includes this mess of another morality, which is the defeat of Sin. Old & New testament passages, ancient hymns, art, and pop culture (to name a few) incorporate this second viewpoint where the World is at war between good and evil. We use the terminology of ‘fighting for good’ and ‘equipping ourselves’ to build this idea that there is a very real life or death war going on around us, and we must fight to our last breadth to see that Good in victorious. And sometimes, we can justify not being perfect as long as more good comes out of it.
But both mindsets cannot exist at the same time, they are in direct conflict with each other. Just like in Tales of Zestiria, the solution to the game was for the main character to dispose of his hopefulness and innocence, and harden his heart to accept that murder is the only resolve. It seemed like everything they were building up with minor characters with learning about why they became so corrupted and helping them recover themselves, was lost when it came to situations that “were too far gone”. The solution was sociopathic.
Does God believe that some of us are too far gone? That the only possible redemption in a loving relationship is eternal termination? I don’t think so, I think God gives us the choice to decide for ourselves if we are still worthy of God’s forgiveness and salvation, but I do not believe that God goes “oh but that kid? Yeah, I’ve tried but he’s too far gone, send him to Hell”. A God that loves his creation, even through rebellion, would see that every person can be saved if they desired it, no matter how far gone they are perceived to be.
How do we treat people in the ‘fight’ for good? How do we act as Christians when faced against people we cannot hope to redeem? So many political battles right now make us believe that we have to choose a side, good or evil, republican or democrat, conservative or liberal, choice or life, laws or freedom, capitalism or communism, and that everyone on the other side is not worth your time. Not only must we choose a side, but we must also destroy the opposing side. Does this belief come from Christ? Or have we let it seep into our Christian ethos from outside influences that seek to use Christianity for its own selfish ends? In the end, the theory cannot work, we cannot both see our lives as redeemable with Christ, but view others unredeemable. We cannot both be at war and hope for redemption.
To reconcile this belief, it must come from inside first. We must be the first person to lay down their weapon and stop believing that war is even an option.
