The Invisible Hand

Adam Smith's phrase "the invisible hand" is one of his more popular phrases despite him reportedly using it rather sparingly across his writings.  The idea is that when individual people work towards their own flourishing without even necessarily thinking about their fellow humans and the latter are unexpectedly made better off by the former, it is as if an invisible hand is lifting up the collective community, nation, or species (depending on the scale).  There are of course situations where apathetic or totally self-absorbed people will neither help nor hinder others without intending to or simply hurt them, yet incidental flourishing can be a part of some societies.

When an entire community or country of people contributes to a culture while only trying to survive or improve their own lives, say, for a job that addresses a genuine need, the community as a whole is indeed benefitted in ways that might or might not have been intended, whether or not anyone contributing to the economy even did so with explicitly philosophical, moral, or personal motivations beyond just wanting to survive.  Such a thing could happen numerous times without either party becoming explicitly aware of the evidence for this occuring.  This much is true: it is possible for unintended benefits to be granted to others by those working for their own personal wellbeing.  The nature of this so-called invisible hand and whether a person should strive to care only for self-interest would be the deeper issues.

Regarding the first of these, the wording of this concept as put forth by Adam Smith can almost come across as misleading.  The phrase "invisible hand" and the comparison to an unseen hand could make it seem like unintentional positive consequences for broad societies are the result of some independent force beyond the person laboring for their own benefit and the potentially unexpected people who benefit from the former, when at most it is just a relationship between two or more people that they are not aware of.  There is no additional metaphysical being or force needed for this to come about (it is not that unseen beings could not exist, of course, as this is logically possible, but that the invisible hand is not necessarily literal).

Regarding the second deeper issue here, that apathetic, blind, or egoistic self-interest can have unintentional positive consequences does not make them morally good or permissible.  The difference between self-interest and selfishness is of course vital, as self-interest does not necessarily exclude fulfilling one's moral obligations, if there are any, to others (and oneself), while selfishness is the philosophically invalid prioritizing of oneself over all else just because one has a personal desire to live in such a way, whether or not one is treating others as they deserve or being rational.  A certain kind of capitalist might both conflate consequences with moral obligation (the two are distinct concepts) and think that the possibility of accidentally helping others justifies selfishness as opposed to self-interest.

This, though, neither logically follows nor is logically possible since selfishness excludes concern for reason and morality, so to the extent that a person is selfish, they care about themselves more than even more important things.  Selfishness is inherently stupid and, if moral obligations exist, immoral.  A focus on the self of this kind is not what any rational person will embrace after realizing that people can bring about beneficial conditions for others without even thinking about it or trying to do so.  The words invisible hand are on their own not really important to understanding how one person/group could benefit another without trying to, but the idea of an invisible hand still stands on several core philosophical issues in ethics.

Game Review--Batman: Arkham Origins Black gate (PS Vita)

"Ooh... I think I'm in love.  Where've you been all my life?"

--Catwoman, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate

Released on the same day as Arkham Origins for the PS3 and Xbox 360, Arkham Origins Blackgate is currently the only handheld game of the Arkham series, though some of the entries could be ported to the Switch.  I have already reviewed the 3DS version, yes, but there is more to distinguish its Vita version than a lack of optional 3D effects.  Trophies and the ability to take screenshots help set it apart from the 3DS edition.  For the most part, the gameplay and locations is the same besides having to use the one screen both to explore the world, for touch screen functionality, and for the map, although there is more to appreciate about this handheld game than might seem to be the case based on its reputation.

Production Values

Comic-like cutscenes appear at points in the story, which might be disappointing to some given that the Vita (and 3DS) can certainly handle cinematics that more closely resemble the style of then-contemporary console games, but the graphics of the gameplay sections themselves are perfectly at home on the Vita.  For a handheld game released almost a decade ago based somewhat on the art style of PS3-era games, Arkham Origins Blackgate has fairly strong graphics (the context is important here).  With the voice acting, Catwoman and Batman in particular stand out as being realized well through their dialogue and actual voices.  Just like some of the physical mannerisms of Batman's fighting style in the console games are mirrored here, at least the characters talk in a way that reflects their personalities in this continuity.

Gameplay

The developers do succeed in bringing the style of the Arkham games to a 2.5D and mostly side-scrolling format, all while utilizing the same sort of backtracking, exploration, and loose map style of the Metroid games (not the Metroid Prime games or Other M, but the side-scrolling entries).  In the moments where you have to fight enemies outside of boss battles, some of the same moves from the third-person console Arkham games are present, so the fighting does not suffer because of this, but it can be extremely difficult to chain hits to earn PlayStation trophies because of how Batman might strike the wrong enemy or swing his fists at no one and break the combo.  Thankfully, boss fights vary up the fighting style by requiring unique actions or strategies, somewhat avoiding this flaw as a result.  Combat, though, is just one of many sides of the game.

Navigating through serpentine passageways and rooms, locating upgrades, searching for optional clues that fill out detective cases to earn concept art, and utilizing devices like the gel launcher and electrified Batarang (for exploration purposes) are core parts of the gameplay as well.  A more limited range and smoothness of movement while performing these tasks than the third-person games allow for will continue you, however.  Even so, aiming the grappler at distant objects in the background to pull Batman into a distant area and shift the camera back there with him (or forward, in some cases) distinguish this from many other side-scrolling games.  Even the Metroid games this seems to draw inspiration from do not feature this aspect of a 2.5D game!

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Catwoman is found for the first time by Batman as she steals files one night, an encounter which ends in her getting captured by the GCPD and sent to Blackgate Prison just before the breakout of Black Mask, the Joker, and the Penguin brings Batman's attention to the prison anyway.  The trio have divided Blackgate among themselves and have already killed or abducted some of the staff members.  As Batman starts apprehending the various criminals and their pawns, another figure watches, plotting to put together a Suicide Squad.  Amanda Waller is a witness of these events.

Intellectual Content

Little to none of the moralistic, existential side of other Batman stories is tackled in this game, though the dynamic between this incarnation of Batman and his foes is established.  Scouring the environments for mandatory and optional items/clues is unfortunately as deep as Arkham Origins Blackgate gets on an explicitly intellectual front.  Detective mode can help find, and in some cases is necessary to find, these objects, yet doing so would be very time consuming for completionists without a guide.

Conclusion

Arkham Origins Blackgate does not reach the same grand heights of some of the other Arkham games, but was it ever supposed to?  For a side-scroller mixing elements of Metroid and the Arkham titles, one made for portable systems at that (though it was eventually brought to some home consoles), this is a game that captures plenty of iconic or noteworthy gameplay mechanics from its console siblings while presenting them in a new format and utilizing some aspects of perhaps the greatest side-scrolling series of all time (Metroid).  The relatively minor or secondary flaws of the game are still accompanied by success in this regard.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Batman and various criminals physically fight each other frequently, all without any blood or gore.

 2.  Profanity:  Very rarely, words like "bitch" might get used.

As Close To Subhuman As Possible

If treating people in a certain way is wrong, it does not matter who they are or what they have done.  They would still deserve not to be treated illicitly by virtue of being human.  If moral rights and obligations exist, rationalists and non-rationalists would have this much in common, though the latter would be too stupid or lost to understand even the basic concepts of moral obligation, truth, or certainty or to live consistently in light of them.  With or without the existence of moral obligations, they are relying on truths (even just logical axioms) that they deny or flee from or disregard.  Every trial and calamity born from stupidity is ultimately brought about by someone's avoidable philosophical assumptions or inconsistency in acknowledging the truth, which can only be known thanks to the laws of logic.  All emotionalistic cruelty, arrogance, hypocrisy, and other such destructive traits inescapably reduce down to either the utter irrationality of assuming one's preferences and perceptions define reality or the irrationality of knowing this does not logically follow and believing or acting as one wishes anyway.

Of course it would still be irrational and unjust, partly because of sheer hypocrisy, to think non-rationalists or, more precisely, anti-rationalists have none of whatever human rights actually exist (if there is such a thing as moral obligation, it is rooted in the nature of sentient beings like God and humanity, metaphysically rooted in God but governing how humans should treat themselves, each other, and other conscious or seemingly conscious beings).  After all, even anti-rationalists are human too, and it would be irrational and immoral to treat them irrationally or unjustly no matter what they believe or do in spite of how many problems they are the source of.  All of the world's social problems, at least the most significant and unrepented ones, stem from them, yes, but they are no more or less human because of it.

All the same, anti-rationalists in particular are lesser than rationalists--not less human, but lesser beings by choice, and, if truth matters, then the rationalists who intentionally, carefully come to truth are morally superior to non-rationalists as well.  They have already positioned themselves to be in alignment with the heart of reality moreso than non-rationalists ever could be; logical necessities are inherently true even if morality does not exist.  If truth has no moral value, then non-rationalists cannot have value, or else it would be true that they have objective significance.  If truth has value, non-rationalists who actively resist or oppose rationalism have made themselves the enemy of the only things that could matter.  They are either worthless or of lesser value than rationalists depending on whether truth has moral value (if it does not, nothing can).

There is no such thing as an anti-rationalist who is truly the equal of a rationalist.  Either way, there is no such thing as an anti-rationalist who is the intellectual equal of a rationalist.  By turning their backs on reality, anti-rationalists knowingly or unknowingly make themselves the shallowest, lowest kind of person.  They are objectively as close to subhuman as possible, thanks to their stupidity, hypocrisy, emotionalism, lack of concern for truth, and willingness to inconsistently care for logical truths or even hypothetical moral obligations as emotionalistically satisfies their worthless whims.  Not every rationalist wants to relish their superiority, but their superiority is there one way or another all the same.

Grammatical Gender

Everything from the symbols that form alphabets and words to the association of the same sound or written word with different concepts is a manifestation of how language is not something with intrinsic word-concept associations, but something invented by beings for communication.  It is not necessary to know words in order to think or grasp the laws of logic; an arbitrary social construct used to achieve the one primary goal of conveying thoughts and concepts from one person to another.  Still, irrational people might allow themselves to be tossed to and fro by emotional and social connection with words instead of looking past words to reason and concepts themselves.

One way some languages can trap people in such irrelevant or secondary things--again, only because they allow themselves to be irrational no matter how strong their social conditioning is--is grammatical gender.  On its own, grammatical gender is the pointless but not necessarily sexist association of some words for mostly non-living things like houses or cups with "masculine" or "feminine" phrasing.  Not present in languages like English, this linguistic phenomenon is yet another wholly arbitrary side of language.  Grammatical gender, however, could be mistakenly treated as evidence or proof (as if it is in any way relevant to the hopelessly doomed attempt to philosophically "support" gender stereotypes) that there are nonphysical differences between men and women in personality, intellect, priorities, and desires.

Languages such as Spanish do contain grammatical gender, but only as a random way of grouping nouns that is, of course, pointless and arbitrary, not to mention potentially misleading.  It would be like if someone called some random nouns theistic when they have no actual ideological connections to theism specifically and some random nouns atheistic when they have nothing to do with philosophical atheism or with the belief in or truth of any particular worldview.  Why the hell would anyone want or need to do this?  There is no practical or abstract reasoning do this besides sheer arbitrary preferences.  Tables do not have a gender, just as books, vehicles, and countries do not.

Neither, as I have extensively addressed, is it even logically possible for someone's gender, their genitalia or chromosomes, to prove or even suggest that they have certain moral standing, intellectual traits, personality traits, talents, motivations, or longings--because there is no metaphysical connection between these things that means the latter is tied to the former, which is in turn because it does not logically follow from having a body with a particular appearance or function that one has specific psychological traits.  In fact, it is true by logical necessity that one man's or woman's personality (and motivations, and so on) are not one way just because the personality of another man or woman is.

That this issue, the metaphysics and epistemology of gender, is not related to the phrase grammatical gender shows just how pathetically as arbitrary words really are: that there are words referring to things other than male or female humans/animals termed with the word "gender" reflects an almost asinine use of the word.  No, it is not automatically sexist to refer to grammatical gender as long as one recognizes the difference between words for random linguistic categories and the psychological traits that gender stereotypes falsely assign to men and women rather than individual people.  As is obvious to any thoroughly rational person who contemplates the matter, though, it is objectively unnecessary and pointless at best for people to construct languages to have grammatical gender, and at worst it is completely irrational for some people to actually believe that certain non-living things could possibly be something that nonexistent male or female personality traits make people gravitate towards.

The Exploitative Side Of Higher Education

Reason is not education, and logical truths are true, knowable, and absolutely certain without education either making them true or revealing them.  This core truth is hated or overlooked by almost everyone in Western culture.  No one who denies or forgets this truth has valid beliefs about anything in education since they are relying on reason as they ignore it.  Nothing I say that follows is in denial of this, for education is not the epistemological savior or grand moral purpose that so many wrongly assume it is.  There are still genuine problems with how education in general and higher education specifically are treated in America that stray from the core of what education truly is.  Higher education (but also education as a whole) is so often merely used as a way to profit from poor students while doing little to actually help them and as a meaningless title for prestige, for the arrogant illusion of feeling superior to people without formal education.

College students, unless they were by happenstance born or adopted into wealthy and caring families, are some of the people in the worst position to pay back the exploitative amounts of money demanded of them--the belief that college should be free for everyone is nothing but emotionalistic, non sequitur idiocy, so I am in no way advocating for that, but colleges do tend to charge gratuitous amounts for, in at least some cases, far too little true workplace preparation that is delivered by philosophically incompetent teachers who confuse education for reason and rationality.  Some students even have to work while progressing through courses just to survive, which only steals more potential time away from studying or reflecting in order to actually pass the courses and escape this cycle that demands so much time and money of them.

There is also the way higher education is so commonly treated as an invalid but popular excuse to look down on the poor or anyone whose priorities or life circumstances did not make education attainable or worth pursuing, to make people try to feel superior or special when all they probably did was just assume whatever hearsay they were told by professors is true while devoting their life to philosophically trivial (by comparison to the things they neglected), unverifiable claims about science and history that they are only interested in for a career boost.  Now, there is nothing irrational or necessarily immoral about treating education as nothing but a disposable means to the pragmatic end of simply obtaining a job with better security or pay, so the last thing I mentioned in the previous sentence is not problematic in itself.  The other aforementioned factors in why many people look up to education or prize it are objectively asinine.

Of course, there is no such thing as knowing that mere hearsay and perceptions one would encounter an abundance of in higher education correspond to anything beyond just that--mere subjective perceptions and hearsay.  This alone means that anyone who thinks they could know what happened thousands or even hundreds of years ago, to name just one general category as an example, because of a college course or professor is a damn fool who makes assumptions, perhaps without even realizing it.  For those who understand epistemological truths like this and still want higher education for career, social, or even just educational purposes, there is nothing wrong with pursuing this kind of education.  It is just that even these purposes are hindered by the greed and arrogance that are so commonly found attached to higher education as a whole.

Adapting Source Material

It is a basic but artistically vital fact that changing elements of stories if they are brought from one medium to another does not necessarily mean that the adaptation or remake is of poor quality.  It is logically possible to deviate from source material and still create an excellent work in any medium.  Even if something does not adapt source material perfectly, the changes, depending on which ones are implemented, could genuinely be improvements over the original stories and ideas or equally competent despite the difference.  Adapting source material is still a highly controversial part entertainment that could have some fools set on criticizing any changes or any sameness, associating an utterly irrational set of contradictory expectations with many adaptations.

In the context of Christianity, this issue actually has even greater significance in light of how the Bible itself can be adapted into other books, films, shows, and games.  Philosophically and artistically (though this is just an extension of the former) engaging with source material of course has ramifications for how Christians and non-Christians alike bring stories from one medium, the Bible in its form as a set of written textual documents, to others that involve rewording or screens.  On one hand, Christians might wish for more cinematic/artistic attention for the Bible, but on the other hand, some of the same Christians will oppose objectively valid or deep adaptations of Biblical stories.

Ironically, it is not as if higher profile, explicitly Christian movies based on Biblical events like Passion of the Christ, made by those who identify as Christians, do absolutely nothing but portray the Biblical accounts without adding dialogue, locations, or imagery that is in no way present in the text itself, and yet Passion of the Christ is an example of a film that remains quite popular with even the conservative audiences that might lash out at other movies based on the Bible for doing similar things.  In many cases, there is an overt double standard that leads certain Christians to exaggerate differences between adaptations of the Bible and the actual Bible or to not recognize the legitimate philosophical and artistic triumphs of a given work.

This can be seen in how plenty of Christians handle movies like Noah--a movie that certainly goes beyond the Genesis narrative of the flood while still being immensely superior both thematically and artistically (again, not that these two are truly distinct) to the vast majority of entertainment made by Christians, even entertainment made for the sake of directly promoting or exploring Christianity as Christians.  Does Genesis describe Noah as almost killing his grandchildren?  No, but this inclusion does not make Noah a bad movie or even a shallow, useless attempt to tackle Biblically important themes and events.  Does Passion of the Christ add or change not a single thing about the gospel accounts of Christ's death?  No, but not only is this not the inherent point of adaptations, it also does not actually contradict any Biblical command to not make presentational changes when adapting parts of the Bible.

Unless it is intentionally meant to distort Christianity itself rather than just tell a story that the creators might understand does not perfectly match the source material in the Bible, there is not anything objectionable on Biblical grounds about adding or changing certain details about dialogue or other such factors of the stories when putting them in a new format (Deuteronomy 4:2 is crucially relevant once again).  It is not even as if most entertainment made by Christians for Christians--Christian filmmakers like Scott Derickson make movies that are geberay consistent with Christian concepts without sacrificing artistic quality or more mainstream appeal, so some Christian-led art does not qualify as Christian--does not do the very same thing!  With adapting the Bible or other source material, changing aspects of a story is not necessarily a betrayal of the original narrative, or even something that is artistically abysmal on a certain level even if changes always were a betrayal.

The Epistemology Of Preparing For The Future

There are events that are logically possible (any event that does not contradict logical axioms could happen or could have happened), but no future event is logically necessary in that it is impossible for it not to happen even if it seems highly improbable: no war, election, business activity, marriage, car accident, or bout of weather is fated to happen by sheer logical necessity.  Even if strict determinism in the physical world (which is not the phenomenological realm) is ultimately true, a different set of initial natural phenomena could have taken place and led to a different sequence of natural events, so no particular event is logically necessary.  With humans and any other conscious creature with volition, it gets more complicated because events voluntary caused by humans could be triggered or averted by choice, and even then, a being with my limitations cannot know what will happen, only what is possible or seemingly likely.  This fact shapes human life in ways that could be easily taken for granted or misunderstood by non-rationalists.

There would literally be no reason to exercise or eat healthy foods if one knew that no illness would befall one due to a lack of these things other than sheer subjective preference, for instance.  The entire basis of doing such a thing to prevent an undesired outcome would be completely eliminated!  Moreover, why would someone insure a house they knew would never be destroyed or robbed, apply to a job they knew they would not receive, or pursue a relationship they knew would be brief and one-sided?  Why would anyone invest in a business that will fail or show mercy to someone who will abuse it?  Yes, some people might still prefer to act in certain ways as a symbolic gesture or an expression of their personalities despite knowing things will not go as they wish, but many people would at least probably pause and change their mind about a great number of things.  Knowing which logically possible future events will occur and what events precede and follow them with absolute certainty would so thoroughly change human life that almost everything besides dwelling on logic and introspection would be altered.

Betrayals could be avoided, fruitless medications or careers could be sidestepped, and the sins of others could be identified ahead of time.  The inability to know the future (beyond the fact that whatever happens, events will be necessity be logically possible because the laws of logic cannot become untrue or cease to exist) is of course denied, ignored, or trivialized by many non-rationalists, who pretend like they can know future events in some cases and admit, likely without even fully grasping the truth, that they cannot know if other events will occur in other cases.  Still, the whole of human life in the external world--as opposed to interacting with logic and introspection, which need no external world to be grasped and underpin all epistemology as it is--with all of its social planning, personal goals, and scientific probabilities must be lived with an unknowable future looming.

It is no exaggeration to say that preparing for the future is to either knowingly or unknowingly labor in anticipation of some possibility that might or might not actually come to pass, with entire lifestyles and decisions hinging on the unknowability of the future.  This might deeply frighten some, and it might excite others, depending on their worldviews, personalities, and life experiences, but it is an inevitable truth that a being that cannot logically prove what specific events will happen in the future cannot know what will happen.  With individual, more focused examples, almost anyone selectively knows this already even if they do not understand it very thoroughly or know how it relates to broader epistemology and, inescapably, to the laws of logic.  Realizing this is a default human limitation with regard to all future events is where most people err or remain in ignorance, and yet the only way to not prepare for a desired or likely future is to do do absolutely nothing with one's body, as well as not think about the future at all (this could be mental preparation).  Non-rationalists will just be more surprised in a general sense when things do not always unfold as they believe they "must" because they have made assumptions the whole time.

Movie Review--Avengers: Age Of Ultron

"There were more than a dozen extinction-level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs.  When the earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it.  And, believe me, he's winding up."

--Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron

"You, Avengers, you are my meteor.  My swift and terrible sword.  And the earth will crack with the weight of your own failure.  Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me.  It means nothing.  When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal."

--Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron

The first Avengers had mostly dry or sarcastic humor that rarely, if ever, conflicted with the serious threat posed by Loki and that actually developed its characters.  The Avengers themselves still had distinct personalities.  The first teaser trailer for the sequel Age of Ultron promised a dark, reflective, emotional hell for the Avengers and a villain that would not stoop to the pointless comedy that was already starting to become more and more a regular part of the MCU.  Some scenes maintain this tone.  Ultron's words when he first appears to the Avengers around 30 minutes into the runtime, for instance, live up to what the trailer presented.  There are even some scenes later on with a serious Ultron and a general lack of unneeded humor.  For much of the film, this is not true.  Low stakes (civilians are shown almost always getting rescued in situations where many would likely die), regular jokes during otherwise somber or dramatic scenes, and an overstuffed story are the glaring weaknesses of Age of Ultron despite its successful and sometimes deeper qualities.

Production Values

To give credit where credit is due, the effects and performances are mostly what they needed to be.  Ultron is an example of both coming together well.  His whole appearance involves effects work, and James Spader did an excellent job of delivering the lines he was given, but the lines themselves fluctuate between having sincere gravity and malice and devolving into jokes that weaken Ultron's intensity.  Only near the very beginning and the end of his existence is he written in a way that the performance deserves.  All the same, his legion of hivemind machines allows for some of the most unique and skillful camera shots in the entire movie--once they attack Sokovia in the third act.  The fact that such a promising villain was wasted and that Ultron was not presented strictly with the more dark tone of the teaser trailer do not diminish the genuine successes of his visuals, some of his writing, and the voice performance.

Director Joss Whedon tried to give each of the main heroes at least one or two scenes that let them reveal their true selves as Ultron promises extinction for humankind if it fails to adapt.  The core cast of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner make the most of what the script calls for (Mark Ruffalo does alright as an actor, but his Bruce Banner is just inferior to Edward Norton's in his subtlety and emotional expression).  Yet, this is around when the MCU ensemble films start to blur the personalities and lines of each Avenger, so their dialogue, especially their comedic effort, sometimes suffers from being functionally interchangeable with that of other main characters.  New characters Wanda Maximoff and Vision are handled with more consistent seriousness (and Paul Bettany in particular kills his role as a new, philosophically minded AI), but even the titular Ultron, for all of his layers and sometimes great lines, suffers from the interchangeable nature of the general dialogue.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Following the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Avengers try to purge the remainder of Hydra's strongholds.  They meet a pair of siblings Hydra experimented on for use as human weapons, but the succeed in recovering Loki's scepter.  The ensuing moments of seeming peace lead Tony and Bruce to try to forever ensure Earth is left alone by alien invaders like Loki and the Chitauri.  Accidentally, after multiple attempts to create an artificial intelligence that could protect Earth, the AI called Ultron emerges.  Its immaterial consciousness (it is an AI in the truest sense, having actual sentience) attacks Jarvis before seeking to find increasingly powerful host bodies.  Ultron misinterpreted Stark's directive to bring peace as a reason to bring humanity to extinction if it does not adapt to his whims, seeing humanity as the biggest threat to its own peace.

Intellectual Content

Age of Ultron has many things it could have developed at least some of better.  The issue of using one artificial intelligence to rescue humana from another artificial intelligence, the metaphysical distinction between consciousness and the body (which is briefly raised when Helen Cho has Ultron's "base consciousness" ready before a physical brain-like device is created for it), and the self-destructive tendencies of many people throughout history are given only passing attention even though these issues are far more weighty than a casual reference could ever communicate.  Ultron himself does fare better than some of these ideas, just with a sometimes unhelpful blend of comedy and dramatic dialogue tainting his scenes.  As far as MCU villains go, he is at least closer to the top in terms of complexity and depth, though the darkness teased in some of the initial advertising would have cemented these qualities better.

There is his the desire to be recognized as distinct from his human "parent" Tony Stark, and there are the multiple theological allusions to Ultron regarding himself as a pseudo-divine being that has come to pass judgment on humanity to determine how worthy of existence it is.  There are even subtle allusions to Ultron wanting humans to "improve," or "evolve," so they can push back against his belief that humans are weak and that life will root them out.  It is not particularly clear why Ultron goes from wanting humanity dead for the sake of world peace to hoping that humans prove some of his beliefs wrong, but Ultron, of course, becomes a more immediate threat to world peace than the humans he wants to kill, conveniently never seeming to realize this.  In his quest to destroy humanity unless it changes because humanity (in a collective sense) is an immense threat to its own peace, he becomes the very type of threat the Ultron program was supposed to thwart.

Conclusion

The introduction of Vision and a handful of lines and shots aside, Age of Ultron is by far the weakest Avengers movie when it comes to balancing its characters, stakes, comedy, seriousness, and deeper themes.  Now, it is clearly an ambitious movie that set out to accomplish many things, yet it tried to do so much without making sure everything was executed well that it falls far short of its potential.  Ironically, its sequel Infinity War turned out to be an example of how an even larger cast of characters can be balanced without giving up more explicitly philosophical themes.  Age of Ultron is not a wholly terrible film, to be clear.  It is just one with squandered opportunities to do something more coherent thematically and story-wise.  For one reason or another (and sometimes multiple reasons), its predecessor and two Avengers sequels are all superior movies even though the first one and Age of Ultron have the same director.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  A man's arm is removed by Ultron and his remaining stump is briefly shown onscreen.  The human-on-human and human-on-machine fights almost completely lack even this small level of visual brutality.

 2.  Profanity:  "Damn," "bastard," and "shit" are occasionally used, sometimes for the sake of humor.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

The state of someone having multiple personalities, a condition once called multiple personality disorder but now commonly referred to as dissociative identity disorder, is only possible because of metaphysical truths that are neglected, misunderstood, or taken for granted by many even outside the context of dissociation.  The dissociative phenomenon of experiencing disconnected thoughts or erratic concentration, something even people without the disorder might relate to, is taken to its greatest extreme in those who literally develop more than a single personality, with each potentially having its own memories, whether genuine or false (not that anyone can logically prove their memories of events are accurate anyway), along with preferences and worldviews.  The explicitly philosophical ramifications are there for anyone who has thought of extreme dissociation to realize.

In those with dissociative identity disorder, the same body is inhabited by multiple personalities that can be so distinct that, if more than one mind is not actually present in the body, it is as if there are truly multiple consciousnesses all dwelling in the same physical shell.  Consciousness is nonphysical and thus does not occupy metaphysical space in the same way that even the smallest material object does, so there is nothing logically impossible about the concept of multiple personalities of the same person or even more than one truly separate mind inhabiting a single body--however, it would not logically follow from this or from the basic idea of dissociative identity disorder that any of the minds would know of each other's presence.  Logical possibility is metaphysical possibility and yet this does not allow one to know anything more than that something is not impossible.

Not only could one never know if they have other personalities they cannot perceive precisely because they cannot perceive it--the existence, contents, and immediate sensory or memory perceptions of one's consciousness are absolute certainties, and some of the only ones that can be discovered, yet a totally dissociative state of mind would be inaccessible to the standard conscious experience of a person's mind.  Although such a level of dissociation is logically possible and metaphysically significant because it entails multiple fragmented, distinct parts of a mind or almost multiple minds residing in a shared body, it cannot be known to be occurring or not occurring.  What can be known about the subject is just what dissociation is, which types are logically possible, the epistemology of introspection, and the metaphysics of general consciousness.

The metaphysics of dissociative identity disorder, like all things, is rooted in and revealed by reason, and one of the things reason reveals is that conscious experience cannot be used to perceive things that are unperceived, with dissociative states being separate from ordinary introspective experience by default.  One can experience conflicting or even unexpected sides of one's consciousness coexisting alongside each other; this much can be experienced by anyone with even rudimentary levels of nuance to their personality.  However, like how one could never know if the only logically possible version of the subconscious (with the subconscious being a somewhat unified background or extension of the conscious part of one's metaphysical mind), one would need to be free of human epistemological limitations to know if one is not psychologically fragmented in this way--or somehow literally sharing a body with an undetected second consciousness.

What Are The Dietary Laws Of Leviticus?

Either the Christian doctrine on the dietary laws is that they, unlike the laws of justice and core morality (see Malachi 3:6), were obligatory for ancient Jews and by extension other followers of Yahweh before Christ but not afterward, or that they, like far more of Mosaic Law than most Christians are willing to even consider, are universally obligatory for all people across all geographical, historical, and other circumstantial variables.  These are the only two possibilities about what could be the Biblical stance on the matter since there are no passages that say the dietary laws are binding or intrinsically obligatory in part; it is all of them that are still binding if the New Testament verses that supposedly repeal them have been misinterpreted and all of them that are no longer morally necessary if these New Testament verses have not been misunderstood.

Now, only a fool would expect the majority of professing Christians to actually change their diet if it did turn out that the dietary laws remain obligatory and that they had only been assuming because of tradition or popularity that these rules do not also correspond to God's unchanging moral nature, despite still at most being secondary to many other moral ideas in Mosaic Law.  For all their talk about pretending to obey the dictates of God as expressed in the Bible, most Christians are only trying to satisfy their subjective consciences, the consciences of others on a selective basis, and meaningless social norms that they are personally accustomed to and confuse for default moral obligations.  It would be too inconvenient for them to want to do what the deity they claim to follow commands despite how every single detail of Mosaic Law, even the ones that could not possibly be obligatory in all times such as sacrificing animals at the Temple (a modern American like me cannot be obligated to sacrifice at the Temple one way or another if the Temple does not still stand, regardless of the death and resurrection of Jesus), is within everyone's ability to fully adhere to all at once (Deuteronomy 30:11).

With all of this understood, what even are the dietary laws of Leviticus?  They are inflexible restrictions on what people can eat that are still far less restrictive than many would likely expect, such as the command to not eat any water-based life form that does not have scales or fins (Leviticus 11:9) or the permission to eat land-based creatures that have split hooves and chew cud (Leviticus 11:3).  Leviticus 11:4-7 lists examples of animals that only have split hooves like pigs or only chew cud like camels, so both requirements apply simultaneously.  Crawfish, for instance, would be excluded from the water-based creatures permitted for consumption because they do not have fins or scales like fish.  Inversely, since cows have split hooves and chew cud, eating beef, given that it (like all meat) is eaten without blood as dictated by Leviticus 17:10-14, would be nonsinful.

There is also a list of various birds to not be eaten (Leviticus 11:13-19), the distinctions made between the flying insects to never be eaten (11:20) and the hopping, winged bugs that can be consumed (11:21-22), and the prohibition of eating creatures that move about or crawl on the ground like snakes, lizards, and rats (11:41-42)--different from creatures like cows that walk on the ground.  Yes, there are things like pork that American Christians might be frustrated about giving up if these laws have the same universal Biblical status as the obligation to never steal or executing rapists, but, ultimately there is still plenty that one could eat even within the rigid dietary restrictions of Leviticus.  The extent of these particular laws has been greatly exaggerated by Christians and non-Christians.

The dietary laws, even if they only applied to humans for a time, would still at least have reflected genuine moral obligations since if you should do something, it is morally required of you, and any command of a deity with a moral nature is rooted in the obligation to obey.  If they were only binding for a time as many Christians believe out of convenience and tradition rather than any sort of rationalistic exegesis, they would not have corresponded to the same core moral nature of God like issues of kidnapping, murder, rape, blasphemy, adultery, and the whole of criminal and social justice; it is also vital to clarify that Christians who reject the dietary laws usually reject too much of Mosaic Law beyond this or literally do so just because of church tradition.  However, if these laws are still obligatory, then they are still at best secondary, important because of their standing as a moral issue but far from having the same primary and crucial nature as most other parts of Biblical morality.  Soon, I hope to address whether the Bible does or does not actually teach that these dietary laws spring from universal obligations that, like the core obligations rooted in God's nature, never change.

Environmentalism In Name Only

The illusion of environmentalism in some companies' plans is something that reflects a broader trend of certain corporations "caring" about moral issues sometimes just to manipulate consumer loyalty, appear superficially moralistic, and not sacrifice their brand strengths.  The fact that some corporations only change their products, marketing, or treatment of employees, to name some things not solely connected to environmentalism, when current events pressure them to is proof that the particular company in question likely cares only for profit, and the founders or leaders want to be as popular as possible for the sake of money.  Now, only a fool who makes assumptions thinks that it is logically impossible for a company's managers or higher leaders to genuinely care about moral and other philosophical issues for their own sake; it is possible for anyone who is willing, no matter their occupational, class, or social standing, to care about and understand these things.

It is just that an egoistic, irrationalistic person unconcerned with reason, morality, and sincerity for their own sake would only be likely to care about the environment, if they care at all for it and not for the way they can rally public support and money because of it, only to stabilize or increase their wealth.  It is not that being a CEO means one is egoistic and irrationalistic, but in the climate of American business, it could be more probable that someone consumed by selfishness and hypocrisy would actually ascend to that position, and such a person will almost exclusively care about simply expanding their corporate empire or just amassing as much profit as they can.  This is precisely the kind of business leader who might lie about their company's pro-environment actions, inconsistently pursue processes less damaging to the environment, or partake in environmentalist measures just to improve their bottom line (the total earnings left after expenses).

He or she might, even if they do not lie, say that the company has done a specific thing to help preserve the environment while overlooking or perhaps even trying to distract people from something else.  Not that any examples are needed to understand this objective logical possibility, but something like the recent decision from Apple to not include chargers with the iPhone model of 2020 to supposedly reduce carbon emissions from transportation is only likely to spark an outcry for chargers for the new devices, which now, when the missing "accessories" are shipped, would involve more transportion than would have been the case initially if Apple had not made this idiotic choice.  Of course, Apple would also be able to separately charge people for these accessory chargers, so this actually would harm the environment more by transportation-related emissions and give the company more money for selling the same standard kinds of products, just separately for those willing to buy them both.

A major company that even is truly is doing one thing to lessen strain on the environment while carelessly or intentionally doing many other needless things that correlate to damaging the environment is not really helping the environment in any sincere, holistic way, and the little that they do might not actually be motivated by anything deeper than a shallow desire for as much money as can be obtained from people who do care about the environment.  This is at best environmentalism in name only, a facade to appease shifting cultural values for monetary gain instead of to live out philosophical substance.  Environmentalism is not even the heart of ethics and the environment is not even the core of reality: the physical world cannot even be proven to have the appearance it seems to have, and the whole of nature is not something with an existence that is utterly foundational or that exists by logical necessity.  Any probabilistic difficulties with treating the environment in a given way are nevertheless only likely to be acknowledged by some parts of the business world when it affects their revenue.

The Hypocrisy Of Some Who Dismiss Absolute Certainty

It is impossible to not have any beliefs at all, but it is possible to have only beliefs that are true, starting with the foundation of logical axioms that cannot be false, moving from this infallible foundation to other facts that are true by necessity because of what they follow from.  This is, as deep of a set of truths as it is, rather basic, but it is already too much for the typical person to understand.  If a non-rationalist does happen to have thought about the concept of absolute certainty, he or she is almost inevitably going to call for it and dismiss it at whim in order to get out of being pressed by others about the illegitimacy of their belief system.  Those who deny or inconsistently acknowledge absolute certainty saw off the branch they sit on.

When they try to sidestep the epistemological need for absolute certainty, they seemingly either realize they just barely possess enough intelligence to see they have no fucking idea what they are talking about and thus have no basis for their beliefs other than preference and popularity or realize that the things they believe could not actually be proven, and so they are eager to make it sound as if they do not need certainty to justify themselves.  Even more pathetic is the usual hypocrisy that follows after they say that absolute certainty is unattainable and thus they are conveniently free to believe whatever they want.  In one case they might erroneously criticize a rationalist for pointing out what they were too incompetent to realize: that the assumptions that anything from sensory perceptions to conscience-based moral beliefs to memories are just "obviously" true are objectively invalid as beliefs on an epistemological level.  In another case they might dismiss certain ideas because they rightly or wrongly think they cannot be known with absolute certainty to be true.

In all cases, such a person is thinking and living only according to what will benefit or please them at a given time in their life.  To be sure (something that is impossible on their own worldview), it is true that they might not even recognize this.  Perhaps they are not doing it intentionally, but because they are simply operating on emotion without ever even developing deep self-awareness, much less deep awareness of the necessary laws of logic.  Even if they do not outwardly object to what others say in inconsistent ways, their beliefs are purely arbitrary and they will have no basis even for the ones that are both correct and provable.

Reason provides absolute certainty whether people outside of a small minority of truly authentic, willing thinkers (the few rationalists of the world) will ever be rational enough to understand how this could not be any other way.  While there are plenty of things that cannot be known with absolute certainty and therefore cannot be known at all--like whether other consciousnesses exist, whether one's own mind is the uncaused cause of the cosmos, what specific events will happen in the future, or whether the body one appears to have is one's real body--there are some things that cannot be false, meaning that there are some things that can be known with absolute certainty by those who look to reason for proof instead of to random beliefs and cultural or personal assumptions.

There is no absolute certainty in any assumption.  When a person truly comes to realize the scope of their irrationality outside of a total alignment with reason, they will understand that there is no knowledge apart from reason and introspection, as well as that it is actually those who make assumptions who are their own obstacles to resting in absolute certainty where it can be found.  For those who do not cease to be their own obstacle, avoidable ignorance, contradiction of their own beliefs, and a lack of intelligence are inevitable parts of their life even if they do not directly realize this.  Their epistemological hypocrisy might be an unidentified trouble for them, but this kind of person is not totally useless.  They can at least provide unintentional entertainment for rationalists.

Rape And Consensual Sexual Sins

There a vaster difference between non-consensual sex and all forms of consensual sex than there is even between consensual heterosexual sex in a committed relationship and consensual but adulterous, promiscuous, incestuous, or homosexual sex.  These latter examples of sexual acts are consensual, but they are sinful regardless for additional reasons.  All the same, the fact that rape is nonconsensual, no matter the age, gender, or social power of the victim and perpetrator, makes it worse than mere adultery, promiscuity, and so on could ever be: only with rape is a person victimized in one of the most personal, degrading ways possible.  Something like adultery might be degrading in other ways, but as long as it is consensual, neither participant is going so far as to have sex with the other party forcefully or without caring if they are not willing.

Even consensual sexual acts beyond adultery, promiscuity, or homosexual sex are not exactly common subjects of popular, open discussion within evangelical groups, with the fact that incest is a capital sin alongside adultery and homosexual sex going almost completely unmentioned.  Adulterous sex and promiscuous sex are the two kinds of sexual sins that evangelicals, without the culture war that has made homosexual behaviors a much greater philosophical focus in modern times than it would otherwise be, would give their primary attention to.  Rape only tends to be addressed by them when it occurs or when they dwell on the various sexist ideas about rape that in turn stop them from treating women and men alike in the just manner the Bible prescribes.  Otherwise, they are likely quite content to never bring it up, if they even think about it left to themselves at all.

Though evangelicals might stupidly think that things like extramarital flirtation or even platonic opposite gender friendships are adulterous when they are objectively nonsinful, at least they recognize extramarital sex involving a separately married person is adultery.  With rape, they might not identify many forms of rape as rape or might outright defend or trivialize some of them.  They tend to have all sorts of double standards, ranging from thinking women invite rape when they do not cover some random amount of their body (as if nonconsensual sex could ever be "invited" and as if the exposed human body is sexual in the first place!) to thinking women would or could never rape men to thinking that rape is a deserved fate of people in prisons, especially rapists or pedophiles.  It is no wonder that rape is either ignored or absolutely misunderstood by most evangelicals as a basic metaphysical act and as a sin the Bible demands execution for (Deuteronomy 22:25-27).

It is not that adultery and promiscuity and certain other kinds of consensual sex are not sinful.  They just cannot possibly match the depravity of a sexual sin that combines immoral sex with the violation of someone's will, whether through physical force or emotional manipulation or threats.  Rape is inherently more destructive, more degrading, and more oppressive than anything having to do with voluntarily cheating on a spouse or having casual sex, as asinine and immoral as the latter two might be.  There is no excuse for taking them more seriously than the only kind of sex where one person, again, regardless of their gender or age or other such factor, imposes their will on another person when it is not desired by the other party.  All sin is sin, and there are other sexual sins that the Bible prescribes execution for.  Rape is still by necessity the worst of them because it shows the most disregard for people made in the image of God out of every possible category of sexual sin.

Knowing One's Own Rationality

One of the stranger misconceptions of rationality/intelligence--the extent to which someone intentionally, consistently grasps the laws of logic and roots their beliefs in them--that I have heard from others is the idea that if someone thinks they are intelligent, they are not.  That this does not logically follow because being rational and knowing one is rational are distinct things that could easily overlap; the former is true when applicable whether or not the latter is something a person focuses on or fully accepts.  Of course, being educated, having a strong memory, and being able to easily put words to thoughts and concepts are not intelligence, so anyone who thinks they are rational for these reasons is an irrationalistic fool, but avoiding assumptions, understanding logical axioms and what logically follows or does not follow from various truths or ideas, and recognizing the intrinsic philosophical nature of logic and everything else makes someone rational whether or not they or anyone else admits it to themselves.

Perhaps this person who erroneously thought that no intelligent person thinks he or she is intelligent confused a lack of self-awareness or rational recognition of one's rationality (the irony in intentionally avoiding this kind of self-awareness even as a rationalist is strong) for humility.  Humility, though, is not ignoring one's talents, rationality, or gravitation towards deeper matters or mistaking them for something trivial.  Moreover, it it was, then humility would be irrational and thus only someone disconnected from grasping reason fully would pursue humility.  This is not the case.  In fact, not making any assumptions, including about one's own rationality, is an expression of humility, and it would be an assumption to blindly believe that one is or is not rational without understanding reason or oneself.

Now, there are only two small categories of things that are logically self-verifying and that necessarily are the epistemological and metaphysical foundation of all else.  The inherent epistemological truth of logical axioms and the fact of one's own conscious existence are the only self-evident things.  While the existence of one's various feelings and many of one's thoughts is not self-evident in the way that one's own existence as a consciousness is, for one's consciousness is a metaphysical prerequisite to having thoughts and an epistemological prerequisite to knowing one's further thoughts or feelings, the contents of one's mind are absolutely certain: if I feel something or think about an idea other than logical axioms or my own existence, I cannot be mistaken that I am experiencing such a thing.  I and everyone else can infallibly know their own worldview, personality, and perceptions by merely looking to reason and then introspecting without making assumptions.  If a rationalist examines their own alignment with reason, he or she can directly know it without any misperceptions, assumptions, or great difficulties, meaning they can know their own rationality (intelligence is nothing besides this).

There are even analogies that could help some better understand or appreciate why believing one is rational, which can be easily proven or disproven to oneself, does not mean one is not intelligent (given that one really is a rationalist).  Is a tall person not fall if they believe they are?  Is a kind person not kind if they believe they are, rightly or wrongly, though, again, this is something rationalistic introspection can easily reveal?  Of course not!  In fact, you cannot know you are tall, only that you perceive yourself to be tall by comparison to something else using senses that might not be seeing the external world as it is to begin with.  On the contrary, since reason is necessarily true and introspective perception is by necessity absolutely certain in that one cannot not be experiencing the contents of one's own mind, one's rationality is not difficult to discover given that one just avoids all assumptions and looks to reason to do so.  It is still true that the difference between being tall and believing one is tall illustrates by analogy how believing one is something does not mean one does not have the characteristic in question.

One's own intelligence is directly knowable without any distortion of the truth or any experience of confusion.  A rational person even knows to some extent that he or she is rational, just as an emotionally conflicted person can easily know they are emotionally conflicted without focusing on the issue directly.  It would be impossible for a rationalist to have no idea at all that he or she is rational, though there are differing degrees of awareness, focus, or acceptance of this fact.  At the very least, that reason and introspection are absolutely certain, directly knowable, and universally accessible means that no one needs to expend great effort to understand their own rationality.  The laws of logic that dictate possibility and necessity and proof, governing the whole of reality, are known directly without anything more foundational than logic itself, and one's mind is ever before oneself.  There can be no reason a person fails to thoroughly recognize their own intelligence in light of these truths besides focusing on something else, apathy, or sheer irrationality.

The Holy Spirit (Part 1)

The Bible is so utterly vague in most of its descriptions of the Holy Spirit that it becomes obvious upon an unbiased examination of the Bible itself that there is no support in its texts for many popular notions and statements about this part of Christian theology.  More foundationally, there is nothing but subjective emotive or general psychological experiences that might seem to point to the presence of the Holy Spirit, making any belief that the Holy Spirit is near by a being that cannot verify the correspondence of many perceptions to outside forces fallacious--even if Christianity is true and despite all the evidence suggesting it is true.  There is even little in the Bible about the Holy Spirit in the first place.  Epistemologically or when it comes to Christian metaphysics, the role and importance of the Holy Spirit is relatively minimal by comparison to certain other things.

Again, there are crucial epistemological barriers to ever knowing if the Holy Spirit is present or actively trying to bring something to a person's attention, even if Christianity is true and the Bible is an accurate reflection of Christianity.  All one could ever have short of omniscience or telepathy is the perception that it seems like the Holy Spirit is there, and any rationalistic or Biblically-sound thinker would never believe in anything because of this except that the perceptions exist, that they seem to be caused by the Holy Spirit, and so on.  Pneumatology, the branch of Christian theology about the Holy Spirit, is not known experientially or Biblically by a subjective, unverifiable perception of the Holy Spirit.

Then there is the fact that different people who claim the Holy Spirit is telling them contradictory things cannot possibly all be right at once--though even the ones who are right could not know they are correct, and they would have succumbed to one of the most asinine ways to fallaciously approach Christian theology and life as someone supposedly committed to them.  It is not true by logical necessity that the seeming presence or prompting of the Holy Spirit means it is actually there, but even aside from this, the many people who believe or assert that the Holy Spirit guides them cannot all be simultaneously right.  Moreover, since the Holy Spirit would be in alignment with the actual teachings of the Bible, someone who says the Holy Spirit has told or taught them something that contradicts the Bible are automatically lying intentionally or too irrational to grasp their hypocrisy.

An evangelical who thinks the "conviction" of the Holy Spirit is the reason they hate profanity, for example, already believes at least two things that are false: the idea that profanity is Biblically sinful and the idea that the Holy Spirit is "convicting" them about this.  The same holds true of the evangelical who thinks the Holy Spirit torments their conscience for Biblically innocent things like sexual attraction, enjoying horror films, or any other nonsinful thing that legalists pretend the Bible condemns.  In this situation or others like it, the Holy Spirit as presented in the Bible could not possibly be on a legalist's side because the Bible itself teachings things that conflict with what such Christians ascribe to it.

Before one even focuses on what exactly the Bible claims about the Holy Spirit, these objective philosophical facts about epistemology and contradictions need to be understood if one is to grasp the knowable truths about Christian theology in this area, as well as how to live it out or react to others if they pretend to either know the presence Holy Spirit or to have been given accurate divine revelation from it when it contradicts the Bible.  Even if someone's belief or statement that the Holy Spirit is teaching or convicting them of something does not oppose what the Bible actually says, it would still, even then, be unknowable if oneself or another person is truly experiencing the presence or guidance of the Holy Spirit anyway.

Game Review--MediEvil (2019) [PS4]

"In a time long ago, there lived in the kingdom of Gallowmere a sorcerer named Zarok.  This arrogant, pitiless man hated his fellow citizens for their simple and peaceful ways, so he raised an army of demons and set out to take the realm for his own.  The King's champion, Sir Daniel Fortesque, led the militia in the battle against this unholy horde."

--Narrator, MediEvil

The 2019 MediEvil remake for the PS4 mirrors what happened with the PS4 Ratchet and Clank remake: an older PlayStation classic was given modern graphics and updated for what was then the latest PlayStation home console.  A complete single player game with no multiplayer components, it is a full experience that needs no DLC and portrays a very promising world, but it is very distinctively limited by some holdovers from an era where games might more frequently have technical limitations like horrifically ineffective or rigid cameras.  The difficulty it does have is more artificial and related to the combat, just not in a clever or helpful way.  There is not even a lock-on mechanic!  Issues like this have no excuse in a 2019 game running on the PS4 no matter how faithfully the game is supposed to imitate the original PS1 release, if this was indeed a problem with that game as well.

Production Values

Strong overall graphics and voice acting help lift MediEvil up higher than it would otherwise be, but the written text that is seen as the narrator reads from optional books scattered about the land has multiple punctuation errors.  Even worse, the game slowed down or locked up entirely at random times.  Very little was happening onscreen to make it suddenly slow as if this was an online game played with a terrible internet connection.  Yet, in the asylum level where far more enemies than usual are onscreen and try to attack you all at once, there was not a hint of performance issues to be found.  The world of Gallowmere has plenty of aesthetic character with a very consistent and fitting art style.  What this PS4 remake needed on the performance and visual end was not better graphics, but the ability to run more smoothly, though control and camera issues at times also hinder the player's exploration and experience, as I will now dive into.

Gameplay

No lock-on camera for fights, a camera that is sometimes fixed so close or far off of what one is trying to look at, no map except the world map between levels, and no damn checkpoints (you have to fully restart a level up on death, including deaths that come about because of the problematic camera) conspire to seriously hold this remake back.  The gameplay is thankfully very solid apart from where it is imparied by these fairly idiotic aspects.  MediEvil's gameplay is a mixture of platforming, exploration, puzzles, and combat, which at its best can be a celebration of an older style of game while showing the uniqueness of this franchise that had been dead as long as Sir Fortesque (alright, not quite as long).  You collect treasure to spend on replenishing special abilities or ammunition for certain weapons, find runes to unlock mandatory pathways, and can eventually wield quite the armory: multiple swords, an axe, a hammer, disposable clubs, various bows, throwing knives, and even Sir Fortesque's own arm that he can detach and strike enemies with.

Killing enough enemies with souls fills a chalice meter and unlocks access to a new weapon in a Hall of Heroes that is accessible after each level is completed.  There is one weapon or bonus the player can receive for each level, and these chapters can be replayed either to obtain missed chalices and other bonuses, amass more gold, or to simply refill your health--it does not get replenished at the start of each level.  It is always ideal to play a short, early level, perhaps just the very first one (Dan's Crypt) because it involves no combat and can be used to find two energy vials.  Thanks to this and the inability to dodge enemy attacks, which is in turn thanks to the lack of a lock-on feature or strafing, boss fights can leave Sir Fortesque especially in need of revisiting an older level to regain health before moving on to the next uncompleted chapter.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Stories tell of how Sir Daniel Fortesque defeated the sorcerer Zarok before succumbing to devastating wounds years ago when Zarok threatened the land of Gallowmere--but he never actually even fought the wizard.  Fortesque was shot in the skull through one of his eyes before he could even finish charging his opponent.  The sorcerer was eventually defeated without Sir Daniel, but he returns 100 years later to bring about the evernight and possess the peaceful citizens he looks down on.  As this occurs, Sir Fortesque is unexpectedly resurrected by the sorcerer's power, becoming Gallowmere's primary option for deliverance to the frustration of some other warrior spirits.

Intellectual Content

The story and characters and philosophical themes are minimal enough that there is no serious strength here other than that of the art, settings, and some of the gameplay.  Yes, there are puzzles, yet few that are more elaborate than the most basic ones.  One of the best puzzle levels has a garden maze where Sir Fortesque has to navigate the serpentine area to solve four riddles.  Other levels can have their smaller mandatory or optional puzzles that, if they do not allow progression in the story, will give Sir Fortesque special items that might or might not end up being vital much later in the story, just not crucial to beating the level and unlocking the next one.  A better version of this game would have had more of a story and put more weight in Sir Fortesque overcoming his reputation or examined whether his incompetent reputation is wholly deserved, but there are mild streaks of other kinds of intellectual embers here.  Next to other hack-and-slash games, MediEvil is not Legend of Zelda with its puzzles and is not Darksiders or God of War with its themes.  As long as no one expects something else, there is still appreciation to be experienced.

Conclusion

On an aesthetic level, the 2019 MediEvil is a stellar example of how to update an old, iconic game for a current console generation.  The integrity of the visuals is not the problem here.  What is asinine is that the developers actually tried to give the visuals of a 2019 PS4 game with the gratuitously restrictive, haphazard camera and ombat mechanics of a much older title.  In this way, MediEvil merges some of the heights of modern games with the severe limitations of another type of game, and the contrast is not exactly something that makes MediEvil reach its full potential.  The 2016 Ratchet and Clank remake for the PS4 is a far better way to more holistically update almost everything while still honoring the game that is being presented to the public once again in new skin.  While a remake of MediEvil 2 could be generally excellent if these issues are not carried forward, it would be a fatal blunder to ever make a game striving to be modern with these same design errors ever again.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Very non-graphic violence isis part of the game as Sir Fortesque uses bows, swords, and even his own arm as weapons to fight off enemies like zombies and demons.