Game Review--Mortal Kombat (PS Vita)

"Where are the Elder Gods, Raiden?  Their pathetic Mortal Kombat shackles me no longer.  They masquerade as dragons, but are mere toothless worms.  My venom spreads.  It is the end of all things.  Armageddon."

--Shao Kahn, Mortal Kombat

The 2011 Mortal Kombat entry is not a remake of the original game, but a reboot of sorts that continues the story from an apocalyptic setting of Shao Kahn's impending total victory--and there is much to the game besides the story mode.  While the story follows Raiden's time-transcending mission to alter the events of a traditional tournament that caters to the bloodthirsty, the sadistic, the misogynists, and the misandrists of the various realms created by the Elder Gods, there are two sets of Challenge Towers, one unique to the Vita edition, the Krypt, where alternate costumes and more can be unlocked, and, of course, simple fights between characters that can be customized away from the main story.  Like Resident Evil: The Mercenaries on the 3DS and Paper Mario: The Origami King on the Switch, though, you cannot just start a new game or reset the unlockables on a new profile without deleting the entire set of save data.  You have to get rid of all the save data by literally deleting the game icon from the PS Vita menu in order to restart it.  Because the data is tied to the game cartridge itself and not a PS Vita system or a memory card, this is something that anyone obtaining the game this far after release might want to hear about.

Production Values

The production values of Mortal Kombat on the Vita are very uneven when it comes to the graphics.  The story cutscenes look perfectly fine for a game ported from home consoles to a handheld system from the early 2010s, but the introductory animations before a fight, where the game has already transitioned from cutscene visuals to the actual gameplay graphics, can be downright awful even for an older Vita game.  This is a system that was capable of much more, after all!  At least the graphics in motion during the combat itself are much smoother and, thanks to the distance of the camera, less jagged or lacking in detail.  To its credit, Mortal Kombat does have very fast story mode loading times, excellent voice acting despite some of the characters themselves having exaggerated personalities, and lots of content, so this Vita port is far from bad in its design.  The short lead-ins to the fights are the worst part in this regard, islands of poor quality in a sea of otherwise competent production values.

Gameplay

Kratos is playable in this game only on PlayStation systems, right at home in the gratuitous brutality of the Mortal Kombat universe's ritual tournaments--but he is not part of the story mode.  In the story mode, players must defeat opponents to proceed from one chapter to the next, the requirement being to become the victor of two out of three rounds when facing a single opponent or to simply defeat two tag-teaming opponents in one round.  Each chapter follows a specific character as he or she faces challengers that fit their subplots while developing the larger story.  Besides speed and agility, most characters play very similarly, just with different animations for their attacks.  The basic moveset is all the same even as the environments change quite a bit.  The new x-ray attacks, which can only be triggered when a three-part meter fills up as you land or receive blows, showcase some of the most diversity across how characters fight, with combatants like Kitana, Nightwolf, Scorpion, Sonya Blade, and Rain having their own personal twist to these more devastating attacks.

Random button mashing might very well be how many players would fill this meter up, though, since the controls can sometimes make characters move too little or too much in the lateral directions and since the opposing fighter might spam their cheapest moves even in story mode.  Find the best low-effort moves to counter this or use on them and just spam them as well to achieve much faster victories.  There is also more to advancing in the story than just seeing the next part of the plot and getting to another fight: competing story fights amasses coins for the Krypt, a cemetery-like area where the player wanders around in first-person and can spend these coins on new costumes and other bonus features.  Finishing smaller, self-contained challenge missions for the first time in one of two Challenge Towers earns more coins.  In the standard Challenge Tower with its 300 mini-missions that came with the original release on other systems, objectives like defending for 15 seconds without taking damage or landing 15 hits within 45 seconds must be completed to win.  The bonus Challenge Tower levels are exclusive to the PS Vita port of the game (which did come out a year after the initial release on the PS3 and Xbox 360) and can involve the touch screen or gyroscope.  Surviving a barrage of missiles for a set amount of time while touching the missiles to make them disappear, fighting as a zombified character, or slicing body parts as they are thrown up onto the screen not only earns additional coins, but it also sometimes unlocks bonus costumes.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Opening with a bold scene where franchise characters are dead on and around a ziggurat, Mortal Kombat shows Shao Kahn about to kill the pseudo-deity Raiden.  Raiden manages to send telepathic messages to his past self so that he can ensure that events leading up to this "Armageddon" are altered enough to change the ultimate outcome.  The game then shifts back to an earlier time where the beings in one of this universe's realms are not permitted by the Elder Gods, who are not the uncaused cause in Mortal Kombat lore (that seems to be the One Being), to conquer another realm without their champion(s) repeatedly defeating its greatest warriors in a fighting ritual called the Mortal Kombat tournament.  interacting with everyone from Shao Kahn to the various dead characters from the introduction, Raiden does his best to prepare Earthrealm contestants for differing versions of the events in these prophetic visions from his own future consciousness.

Intellectual Content

Mortal Kombat as a franchise might not be known for its sincere exploration of any foundational or otherwise deep topics, though a game like this being made does of course naturally connect with the issue of whether violent content in entertainment is immoral to consume and if violence in art can "make" people engage in any particular kind of behavior (and it obviously has nothing to do with whether someone is inclined to be violent or if they would do so even if they wanted to).  However, the story for this 2011 Mortal Kombat game is actually more complex and at times even more abstract than the reputation of the games might suggest.  As an aside on how this game further deviates from misconceptions some might assume about the series, it even does handle its scantily-clad female character Kitana in a way that brings out her worldview, upbringing, and personality, rather than have her and every male character only focus on the sensuality of her body.  No, not even the male characters universally fixate on her body and minimal clothing!

Conclusion

As one of the only portable Mortal Kombat games to be released as of yet (and I do have the eleventh game on my Switch that I will get to at some point), this 2011 reboot/sequel represents the series well on the Vita, with its lore that at times is asinine and at other times is more complex and even deeper than some might expect given the reputation of the franchise.  There is an extensive set of unlockables, bonus missions, and Vita-unique features that make this a game that can be played for many hours without exhausting its content and a game that highlights the strengths of handheld platforms in particular.  No, it does not focus on its premise in a way that confronts the moral and other metaphysical nature of this world, and the controls can be very unresponsive or difficult to master, but other than the lackluster graphics right before fights in story mode, there are no other wasted opportunities or deficiencies in this game.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  In addition to the blood that should surprise no one, special attacks include a slow-motion series of two strikes where the camera zooms in and shows skeletal fractures with an x-ray filter.

Near-Death Experiences (Part Four)

What does or does not logically follow from a given idea is often incredibly easy to discover once a person has simply thought of the concept.  Nothing is self-evident besides the fundamental, inherent truth of logical axioms and that one exists as a conscious being (though this is only knowable through logic like all else, it is also self-evident because to deny or doubt it, one must rely on it), but it is not especially difficult to realize the logical necessity and absolute certainty of what must or must not be true if a specific thing is correct, even if someone is only discovering some of the relevant truths.  The real roadblock for people who look past assumptions, emotionalism, and laziness is that there are unavoidable epistemological limitations like the inability to know if what one is looking at is really there.

Multiple epistemological limitations prevent us from discovering which logically possible post-mortem state--oblivion of consciousness or any of the logically possible afterlives--is actually there.  There is the inability to know the future, there is the inability to know if most of one's sensory experiences connect with anything outside of one's immaterial mind at all, and there is the inability to glimpse to the other side, if there is one (and even if God or some other supernatural being showed this to oneself, limitations would prevent knowledge of whether this vision is more than a hallucination).  There is also the limitation of memory.  If I died and came back to life, whatever the means of death, I might or might not remember an experience in an afterlife.  If I do, the memories could be false, and if I do not, it would likewise not follow that there is not an afterlife.

For this reason, even if someone was to actually die, be revived, and remember no sort of near-death experience, it would of course not be true by necessity that there is no afterlife.  An afterlife might also await some people and not others, and this person could be one of those who will not receive a continuation of their consciousness in any form.  As unheard of as this is in most mainstream contemplation of the afterlife, it is logically possible.  There is also another possibility.  Like the Bible teaches, its theology very likely true even where its tenets could not possibly be false (for example, that there is an uncaused cause), it could also be the case that people die, enter a period of nonexistence or unconscious sleep of the soul, and then are resurrected at a future time.

Yes, no one is in heaven or hell right now according to the Bible, and Sheol, where it says we all go in the meantime, is not a dimension where we experience anything at all.  All of our very perception, Ecclesiastes (9:5-10), Job (3:11-19), Psalms (88:10-12) and other Biblical books say, ceases to exist until God resurrects our bodies.  The resurrection of the righteous is at the return of Jesus (John 14:1-3, Revelation 20:4-6, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and that of the wicked after Satan is thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10-15).  While people could still have misleading near-death experiences even if Christianity is true, as it probably is in light of hordes of historical evidences, those who have been medically revived might report they have experienced nothing when they died because they were not yet resurrected.  Inversely, those who have reported seeing something like the Biblical New Jerusalem could have spent moments perceiving what things would be like after their resurrection, though they were not in existence in all the time that passed before that.

In Sheol, where the righteous and wicked alike "sleep" in oblivion or unconsciousness, there is no joy, longing, anticipation, anger, sadness, hatred, or fear because there is no conscious awareness at all.  There is not even recognition of the only self-evident necessary truths that even Yahweh's existence hinges upon.  If Christianity is true, and once again, it very likely is, then the absence of near-death experiences for certain people who died and were revived could simply be because there is nothing that can be experienced when one is in the soul oblivion/sleep of Sheol.  Christianity is not true by logical necessity in itself because it could be or have been true that it is false wherever it is not logically necessary.  Either option is consistent with the truth of axioms.  However, it almost certainly is as far as evidence suggests, and it promises literal oblivion or sleep before resurrection to eternal life or annihilation of the soul (Daniel 12:2, John 3:16).

An Obligation To Steward The Environment

Only a conscious being can have a moral obligation to treat another conscious being in a given way, and only a conscious being can have moral rights by virtue of its metaphysical status.  It is logically impossible for a rock or a chair, if they are truly inanimate, to deserve to be treated in any particular way because there is no being to be abused, but only an object without a consciousness to mistreat.  Likewise, an inanimate object has no obligation to not harm people or animals.  A genuinely inanimate thing has no perception, no will, no desires, no capacity for motion that is not dictated strictly by external factors, and neither obligations nor rights.  These qualities can only be possessed by conscious beings.  Different categories of conscious beings could have different degrees of rights and obligations, but perception and will are what make a being capable of having a moral standing.

God, humans, and even animals can all deserve a certain kind of treatment because they are all conscious on the Christian worldview, although of course there are epistemological limitations that prevent one from knowing if other minds of any kind exist at all.  Indeed, the Bible speaks repeatedly of the obligations and rights of animals and far more thoroughly on obligations to God and to the humans made in his image.  However, the environment in which humans and animals live is among the things God calls "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and it follows from this that there would be such a thing as immoral treatment of the environment.  How is it that it is a genuine obligation on the Christian worldview to not trivialize or needlessly exploit the environment when it is logically impossible for inanimate things to deserve anything one way or another?

Setting aside the unprovable and unfalsifiable possibility that all matter has its own consciousness (a philosophy called panpsychism that is at least largely compatible with Christianity, as surprising as that might be), the Bible does not teach or hint at human obligation to steward the world is for the sake of the world.  There could be no such thing as moral rights and obligations unless there is a deity with a moral nature, not that there could be a universe in the first place without an uncaused cause to initiate the causal chain that brought physical matter into existence.  If there was no uncaused cause or even an uncaused cause without a moral nature, there would be no such thing as morality because all that there could be is preferences and feelings pertaining to morality.  Like a hallucination of a material object outside of one's mind that is not truly there, moral obligations would at best be something that seems to be there but is not.  An obligation to not trample on the environment would thus be an obligation to God, whose nature is such that makes it morally mandatory to steward creation.

An obligation to protect or not abuse the planet and by extension the universe itself is not because the environment has rights in itself.  No, it would be for the sake of God and for the sake of the beings that live upon/within it.  After all, to think that the universe is something to dispose of or ruthlessly use would be to think little of the creator of matter, which makes anti-environmentalism a direct or indirect assault on God.  Similarly, hostility towards the environment is directly or indirectly hostility towards the humans who bear God's image according to one of the most central Biblical doctrines of humanity.  Not only does neglect or abuse of the environment show disregard for God since the universe is part of his vast creation, but it also shows a disregard for the apex of his creation: humankind.

An obligation to steward the environment has so much more to it than simply tending to an enormous, unliving rock.  As always, since any existing moral obligations are inherently theistic, the morality of how one treats the environment is ultimately about whether one is willing to do that which is good because the nature of the uncaused cause makes it so.  More than just the world is at stake, though an obligation to preserve and care for nature simply because it is the handiwork of God is in part because of the environment itself.  It is impossible for conscience or collective agreement or personal preference to ground morality, if it exists, and there could be no obligation to an inanimate world just for the sake of the world.  At a minimum, there is no morality without a deity's moral nature, and there would be no obligation to steward the environment without a theistic entity to ground this.  Morally valid rather than pragmatically useful environmentalism is about far more than the environment.

Planned Obsolescence

The myth of endlessly increasing sales and revenue might be so appealing that corporate leaders ignore the easily demonstrable fact that any fixed population, including the total amount of people in the entire world at a given time, has a finite number of potential consumers with a finite amount of financial resources, concentration, and time to devote to actually making purchases.  It is logically impossible for there to constantly be an increasing level of revenue from a product or even a company's entire set of products and services, unless there is an infinite number of people with infinite resources--and yet unlimited resources is merely a dream for many.  Many people do not have even enough resources to buy everything they might want, and certain executives nonetheless hope to convince as many people as they can to buy yet another product even if they do not need it, are initially content without it, or do not have the money to immediately purchase it.  Deception or other outright exploitation can be manifested in a very particular way to achieve this goal.

Planned obsolescence is one way that companies ruled by this category of idiot, someone too irrational to see the impossibility of forever expanding profits with a limited range of buyers or too obsessed with profit to care, try to maximize profit at the literal expense of consumers.  This entails designing a product so that after a fixed duration of usage or simply a certain amount of time after it is purchased, it loses much or all of its initial quality, falling apart, no longer working ideally, or needing a total replacement.  Consumers are targeted with the intention of just draining them of their money without regard for the longevity or quality of the product they are supposed to buy, and not just buy once, but buy again for each variation that is released, if the company leader(s) had their way.  Planned obsolescence has many forms, and some of them can be quite easy to notice, so easy that even people who do not think often or thoroughly about business might still recognize them--and despise them.

Hardware of electronic devices might rapidly deteriorate, software might start running slowly or stop require newer hardware, parts on toys might break off, and so on.  Very intricate, delicate, expensive, or rare parts could be used in the making of a product, especially with electronics, so that repairing an item as a consumer is very risky or not financially worth it, with the price of a replacement item perhaps being the same as a replacement part for the defective piece.  Companies furthermore might withdraw support for items after an arbitrary number of years to make it even more difficult to continue using what one already owns.  In doing some of these things or all of them together, there is a great deal of difficulty in not purchasing newer items, or just the increasing likelihood of the product malfunctioning by design.

Entire product categories are especially prone to being created with planned obsolescence at the core of the process.  Apple is a prominent practicer of this, discontinuing support for previous hardware models and aggressively releasing new models of the same basic device every single year, but this is the same company that even shipped phones in 2020 without chargers because the smaller packages "helped the environment"--as if trying to force new buyers to pay more just to have the fucking charger is really ever likely to be motivated by anything but greed!  In general, electronics ranging from smartphones to computers (including laptop computers) commonly develop battery, performance, or screen related issues within less than five years, whether they are an Apple product or not; in fact, one of the only types of electronics not plagued by this is the category of video game consoles.  This is in part because of systematic planned obsolescence.

This approach to business does intrinsically exploit consumers, though depending on the product and the need for or usefulness of it, choosing to purchase something intended to prematurely stop benefiting the user (at least to the same degree) is done willingly.  To be sure, it is also true that not all possible kinds of planned obsolescence are as obvious or petty or greed-driven as others.  In a handful of cases, the persistent push for buyers to continue buying might even put products with genuinely superior features in the ownership of consumers, but this does not justify exploitation of customers if exploitation is immoral.  It is not irrational to recognize planned obsolescence and still desire or purchase something, of course, as long as one does not make assumptions about the matter one way or another or think that personal convenience for those with enough resources to constantly update or replace their belongings justifies the way that planned obsolescence hurts almost every consumer even if they in some other way benefit from it.

Movie Review--Candyman (2021)

"Who do you think makes the hood?  The city cuts off a community and waits for it to die.  Then, they invite developers in and say, 'Hey, you artists, you young people, you white, preferably or only, please come to the hood, it's cheap.'"

--Anthony McCoy, Candyman

"Samuel Evans.  Run down during the white housing riots of the '50s.  William Bell, lynched in the '20s.  But the first one, where it all began, was in the 1890s.  It's the story Helen found.  The story of Daniel Robitaille."

--William Burke, Candyman

The first Candyman is a masterpiece of horror and thematic storytelling, introducing a supernatural villain whose past was marked by racism and who had the unique goal of metaphysically existing as long as whispers and rumors about his presence continue.  Its 2021 sequel of the same name, similar to the 2018 Halloween, ignores the other sequels released in between it and the original, but it does not match the first film's character development or honest exploration of subject matter that has haunted America for so long.  Candyman himself is scarcely in the movie, which would not be a negative thing if the characters that are focused on were developed better.  The performances are not the problem.  It is the lack of storytelling depth, character development, and the philosophically hypocritical condemnation of racism and simultaneous approval of it (black and white characters are sometimes said to have certain psychological characteristics because of their skin color, which is demonstrably false through reason alone) that hinder this movie, and the relatively brief runtime does not help when so little of substance is done with the characters and plot.

Production Values

In spite of its severe lack of deep characterization and, more importantly, its inconsistent approach to the atrocity of racism, Candyman displays a cleverly constructed aesthetic as early as the opening title screens, where the shot of a city is tilted to the inverse of what would normally be seen as it shows buildings and the sky from below, at an angle sharp enough that it is as if it was being viewed inverted, through a mirror, and the words on the logos themselves before this are backwards to capitalize on this mirror reflection.  That style and depth of integration between themes and imagery is for the most part lost afterward, with the characters suffering from a similar blandness or lack of exploration.  Teyonah Parris (WandaVision) plays the girlfriend of main character Anthony McCoy with flashes of greater characterization here and there, but little to showcase outside of those moments, though Colman Domingo's fewer scenes as a secondary character named William Burke who tells Anthony more about the Candyman stories do reflect his grief and frustration.  They give performances of desperation or passion when the story calls for it, but their characters are very much secondary, even with Burke.  It is Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who has established himself as an excellent actor with HBO's Watchmen alone, who has the lead role, and he is very competent indeed; it is just that his character, while still getting more attention and more development than most of the other characters, is still not revealed all that much beyond him enjoying and creating art, caring about racial injustices against African Americans, and becoming obsessed with Candyman.  Other characters fare far worse overall, though one is involved in a fitting plot twist that was not telegraphed ahead of time.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Many years after Helen Lyle investigated urban legends of Cabrini-Green for graduate school and became entangled with the "Candyman," a spirit who kills people who summon him and who might literally rely on his legend's popularity to exist, artist Anthony McCoy looks into Cabrini-Green to prepare for an art project.  He creates an art piece about police brutality against a man who was later assumed to be the basis of the Candyman legend, having offered a child some candy before being swarmed and viciously attacked by police officers.  Anthony says Candyman's name five times while looking at a window as a joke to frighten his girlfriend, only for a series of killings to follow that are all in some way related to Anthony's art and the legend it calls attention to.  A bee sting on his right hand also leads to a progressively worse scarification of his body as he learns more about the long line of murdered African Americans who are related to the supposed story of the Candyman.

Intellectual Content

Gentrification, racism against black people, and the artistic expression of ideas and emotions are all tackled here, but with an unnecessarily brief runtime of around 90 minutes, the Candyman reboot needed more time to address them and more time to tell a stronger story.  More significantly, it needed to handle them with with consistency and accuracy.  Viewers see up close why the African Americans of Cabrini-Green might be terrified of both Candyman and the police, as well as how, sincerely or insincerely, the story of Candyman could become a secretive but thriving legend.  Viewers see how easy it would be even today for those with power to wield it in an illicitly discriminatory manner if they wished.  There is also attention brought to how there are some white people who might love what black people can do for them, but not the black people themselves.  When Burke tells McCoy how white supremacists "love what we make, but not us," the story of Tony Todd's Candyman, an artist whose talents were appreciated by white people even if his humanity was not, is echoed anew.

Obviously, the concept behind Burke's statement would only apply to white people who are racist, but the 2021 Candyman makes the mistake of occasionally attributing certain nonphysical traits to black and white people, all while condemning some of the consequences of a society believing stereotypes!  There are no personality traits or philosophical stances or talents a person has because they are black or white, and no one is stupid, haphazard, or impulsive because of the color of their skin, though this Candyman tries to pass off the actions or beliefs of some white characters as coming from their race; even the false stereotypes almost everyone will be forced to confront in cultural upbringing can be perfectly identified, disproven, and rejected for the logical impossibilities they are.  Individuality, worldviews, and social pressures are the only reasons why anyone ever behaves in a certain way, and the color of anyone's skin cannot possibly have a damn thing to do with whether they choose to understand and live for truth.

Conclusion

Horror can be one of the best genres to hold up a mirror to human cruelty when handled correctly, as franchises like Saw reflect.  Done right, horror directly faces the potential for desperation, arrogance, and vulnerability that lies within humanity, showing how various individuals might react to bleak circumstances.  The 2021 Candyman reboot just does so little with this potential that apart from a handful of very excellent lines, it is a disjointed, vague, and at its worst outright hypocritical film that does not do its thematic subject matter or worldbuilding justice.  As a slasher movie, it is not awful, just mediocre.  As a film that addresses not only racism against black people in America, but also the dismissive treatment of the poor that can accompany it, it is somewhat bold in its periodic directness.  The boldness is just not channeled how it needed to be.  Uniquely stylized violence, deeply nuanced characters, and an accurate assessment of issues like racism are not to be found here.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Most killings occur where the camera does not show them up close or directly, but there are images of a throat that has been slit, the sawing off of a hand, and spurts of blood.

 2,  Profanity:  "Shit," "fuck," and "bitch" are used.

The Only Unavoidable Sins

Supposedly grateful enough for the redemption extended to them that they are willing to change their lives, plenty of Christians, or at least people casually identifying as Christians with no deep philosophical awareness of what Christianity is or how it relates to other concepts, will do either nothing to avoid certain sins, will defend them, or will trivialize them (not in the sense of recognizing they are objectively lesser than other sins, but in the sense of not taking them seriously).  When they do happen to selectively have genuine interest in moral ideas, it is almost always broad cultural norms rather than Biblical obligations or church legalism that drives them to think that innocent or good things are sinful (Deuteronomy 4:2).

There are people who think Christian morality actually condemns things like use of profanity, nudity, anger, or masturbation, still engaging in such things even as they condemn them on the basis of feelings or traditions.  The problem here is not that they do these things, but that they are stupid enough to think they are Biblically immoral (they plainly are not condemned and thus pretending otherwise is itself the moral, and intellectual, error) and that they are stupid enough to apathetically or defensively pursue them.  It is one thing to sometimes succumb to sin without thinking one must have still been in the right to do so.  Regret and moral improvement are likely to follow if this is someone's intentions.

It is another thing to think that something immoral, whatever it might be, is ever obligatory, good, or justifiable.  It is also another thing to think that any particular sin is unavoidable no matter how much everyone strives to abstain from it, or that moral philosophy is not something important enough to dwell on more than matters of mere practicality.  If one observes and converses with the typical evangelical, one of these latter three stances is almost invariably what they base their lives around.  Sin is regarded, of course most often when it benefits someone personally, as an absolutely unavoidable thing that there is no point in fighting or loathing.

Not everyone struggles with or has any interest in entire categories of sins.  What is alluring to one person might be something another person is not captivated by, and it is always possible for someone who partly wants to engage in a specific sin to resist.  Moral perfection, either way, is absolutely achievable for everyone, for something it is impossible for one to do would not be sinful to fall short of, for they cannot have failed in an obligation.  There is no individual sin, class of sins, or situation where it is logically impossible for someone to have acted differently and averted the entire circumstance at hand, including by rejecting all irrationalistic, immoral motivations of any kind.

There is, though, an extremely small set of scenarios where, if a situation was not thwarted beforehand, a person will legitimately be unable to avoid sin by action or inaction.  This can only come about if all people involved did not align with reason and morality enough previously to avoid this fate.  Among these very precise, rare, but still logically possible situations would be the likes of Jephthah's dilemma in Judges 11, where he made an vow to God that he would sacrifice whatever walks through his doors to Yahweh.  His daughter is comes out from behind his doorway.  Breaking a promise to God and human sacrifice are both grave sins, and Jephthah could not avoid both sins at once.

It is not even that the scenarios themselves cannot have been avoided: once a person is already in them by philosophical negligence, apathy, emotionalism, or any other kind of irrationality.  The lesser sin is of course the one any person should enact in this case, not because the thing is itself obligatory, but because, through action or inaction respectively, it would be an even greater sin to make the other choice.  Jephthah should have broken a very careless vow rather than commit a capital sin involving murder, and a murder that echoes pagan human sacrifices at that.  Other than in instances like this, however, there are no sins or philosophical errors at all that are inevitable.  Even then, the only unavoidable sins are ones unavoidable because someone put themselves in a terrible circumstance through decisions that themselves could have been made differently.

Scientific Contingencies

Non-rationalists are too stupid to generally even think of doing anything but assume that what they see could not possibly be an illusion, or even an unverifiable phenomenon, which spurs them to ignore the abstract necessary truths that are the real core of reality in favor of contingent scientific perceptions and laws.  Are scientific laws uniform across the entire cosmos?  Could scientific laws have been different or could they change at any moment?  Such things almost never enter their mind, if they ever do at all.  Of course, scientific laws and perceptions are all contingent on metaphysical factors far deeper than themselves, on logical truths that ground reality and determine possibility, on (when it comes to scientific perceptions and not the laws of nature themselves).  Since scientific laws, the very existence of an external world that laws of nature constrain, and the subjective experience of sensory perceptions are not necessary truths, much less fundamental logical axioms, of course scientific laws could have been different or could suddenly shift without warning as long as whatever happens is logically possible.

Fire could have correlated to sensations of cold and ice with with sensations of heat.  Sugar could have been healthy for teeth.  Various objects could have floated above the surface of Earth if one released them from the hand instead of falling to the ground, and humans could have shed and regenerated limbs as normally as they do other things like falling asleep.  Electrons could have been clustered together in the atomic nucleus and protons and neutrons could have "orbited" them.  Living bodies could have had other fluids inside of them besides blood or could have carried no fluid within them at all, with creatures not requiring blood or any replacement for survival.  Electricity could have been harmless even upon direct touch.  Earth could have had twin suns like certain planets from science fiction, and the periods of time where the sunlight bathes the world could have been much longer or shorter than we are used to.  None of these things are logical necessities like how some things cannot not logically follow from other things or how it is impossible for nothing at all to be true (as that would then be true itself).

Many more hypothetical examples could have been the case.  There is no such thing as a scientific necessity that rivals logical necessity, for scientific laws cannot violate the laws of logic and all their necessary truths, which are the only things that could not have been any different than they are.  It could not be true that a conclusion that follows from its premise--not what someone assumes follows from a premise, but what truly does--is false or that anything else could have logically followed; it is not true that scientific laws could have not have differed from the perceived laws of nature we encounter, though even a different set of physics (all scientific laws are really just different laws of physics) would still have to be consistent with logical truths even if the same scientific phenomena did not occur throughout the entire cosmos.  Because a person can rely on logical axioms and their ramifications without realizing it and yet still assume that the sensory experiences they have must be accurate, so many people regard subjectively perceived, metaphysically contingent scientific laws that could have differed as the core of reality while not even thinking of the true heart of all things: logical axioms and what follows from them.

Contradictions cannot be true.  A thing can only be what it is.  These are other logical axioms beyond the aforementioned examples, and these are things that could not change or have been different.  Whether given laws of nature or even nature itself exist whatsoever is a matter of logical possibility.  Whether logical axioms are true is a matter of intrinsic necessity (and one of the necessary ramifications is that it follows that logical truths are the only thing that has to exist, the only thing that could not have not existed and the only thing that exists without in some way metaphysically relying on something else).  Reason and not science is the foundation of all.  Even God, which transcends the natural world as the uncaused cause, could not have brought logical truths into existence or altered them because they are true by necessity, either making up the small number of self-evident, self-necessary axioms or making up the larger number of truths that follow from some other truth or concept--even if the concept itself is not true.  However, the laws of nature at least depend on the uncaused cause to either create or permit them.  If the uncaused cause willed it, phenomena like gravity or electromagnetism could change or cease to exist altogether.  This is not and could not possibly have been true of the laws of logic.

The Biblical Leviathan

The word Leviathan has been more loosely used to refer to general beasts of the ocean, whether or not they would be literal sea serpents.  Everything from observable creatures like whales to giant squids to fictional monstrosities, like the eldritch spawn in the video game Call of Cthulhu, might be called by this informal name in contemporary culture, and this title is a proper noun in the Bible.  It is a name brought up more than once, yet never with a high degree of clarity about anything more than its association with the sea and that it, like more conventional animals, is a thing that reflects a fraction of God's power and yet is something transcended by the uncaused cause of Christianity.  Is the Biblical Leviathan supposed to be an extinct species?  A singular, exceptional beast?  A veiled reference to something other than an animal altogether, or maybe even a figurative beast that does not even symbolize a particular creation or enemy of God?

Psalm 74:13-14 briefly mentions, whether this is supposed to be literal or figurative, that God crushed the Leviathan's heads and served its flesh as food to desert creatures.  This entity is called a monster of the waters and is specifically said to have multiple heads.  No further clarification is given, including about whether the Leviathan is being presented as an actual sea monster that God directly killed, a symbolic stand-in for some other thing, or a hypothetical example of what God could do to any living thing if he wished.  Isaiah 27:1 also calls Leviathan the "monster of the sea,"a "gliding" and "coiling" serpent that God will eventually kill.  Since Psalm 74 describes the beast as having already been killed and Isaiah 27 is making a then-future prediction, it is possible that the Biblical Leviathan, if a literal ocean creature, is supposed to be a species (though not necessarily a species large in number), and if figurative, a symbol of God's enemies, either demonic or human.

In the book of Job, chapter 41 in particular, the Leviathan is given far more detailed attention than anywhere else in the Bible, however.  God uses the Leviathan as an example of the wonders he is able to create.  The description at first sounds more parallel to creatures many people are familiar with, including extant (non-extinct) animals like crocodiles, but as God proceeds, he references light, flames, and smoke that come forth from Leviathan's mouth and nostrils respectively (41:19-21), adding that it resides in the depths of the sea (41:31), a place where crocodiles are not exactly reported to make their homes.  Perhaps there was intentional linguistic exaggeration on God's part, knowing that the exaggeration of the words is just that, to emphasize the grander metaphysical point God was making in the book of Job: that God is more central and greater than all of his creations, however strong, fearsome, or unique they might be.

Whatever its status as a hypothetical or real/once-living creature, the Leviathan is presented in Job as being overwhelming to merely look at for humans (41:9).  Its actual ferocity and power are stated in more than one way to be futile or very close to utterly futile for beings with human limitations.   "'Nothing on earth is its equal,'" God says (41:33), something that would certainly not apply to crocodiles in the way the book of Job insists.  All the same, Psalm 104:25-26 states that God formed the Leviathan to live and even frolic in the ocean.  It is here acknowledged as just one of many animals intended by God to dwell in the "vast and spacious" sea.  This short reference to Leviathan in Psalm 104 complements Job 41's lengthy description of this ocean life form that reflects God's creative abilities.

As for the exotic nature of an actual creature like this, it is of course logically possible for such creatures to exist or to have existed, so the Leviathan is not something that exists by logical necessity or whose existence is logically impossible.  This is not a particularly central part of Christian theology in any way, including apologetics.  It is just something very precise and often ambiguous that is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible, yet something that is still mentioned primarily to emphasize qualities of God himself rather than those of any marine animal he made, even if among them there was once a literal sea serpent.  That many extant creatures within Earth's oceans almost look outright extraterrestrial or unusual already provides sensory evidence that bizarre creatures live in the ocean even now, and the Leviathan of the Bible, if literal, would have just been a grander animal within the same general category.

To Outlive Death

The laws of physics changing from their current patterns is not logically impossible.  Logical axioms are not contradicted by this, and thus it could happen.  Unless this was to occur, as unlikely as it still appears in light of memories and sensory evidences of consistent natural phenomena, every individual person seems fated to eventually die as their body's vital functions cease their activity.  The epistemology of death is of course vastly different from what many people would expect: I cannot know that I will die because there is no absolutely certain truth I can know from which it follows by logical necessity that I will die.  Even so, there is a great deal of sensory evidence that my body, like other human and animal bodies, is succumbing to gradual decay and will eventually perish.

In fear or awe, some pursue life extension methods like cryogenic freezing, where people are put into a low temperature state that preserves enough neurological functions to correlate to sustained consciousness, though that consciousness might be inactive or at most only dreaming.  Those in cryogenic stasis could supposedly be revived in the future, but even then, unless the laws of physics change, their bodies would still deteriorate at the usual rate once again, and if they were simply left in cryogenic stasis, what if the universe around them comes to an end?  Would they be guaranteed eternal life in that case, as bland as the life in cryo-sleep might be?  There is also exercise and the consumption of healthy foods and liquids, but this leads to an expanded lifetime with hopefully fewer discomforts and ailments that does not even last as long as cryogenic sleep.

To outlive death by scientific means is extremely improbable at best, no matter the advances of medicine and general technology in the present era.  Short of an afterlife of some kind where consciousness is free of the body, there would only be death of the mind and the body that awaits a person, though the exact timing could be postponed intentionally or unintentionally.  In contrast with all of the particular actions that a person can take to promote the health of their body or to otherwise prolong its biological life, there are also many factors that are completely beyond a person's control, including meteorological events that are not stopped by willing them away, the recklessness or malice of other people, and the happenstance shutdown of one's body.

The, in one sense, persistent imminence of death--that at any moment, there are many logically possible ways that we could die which we could do nothing about--is something taken for granted by some people as others might desperately try not to dwell on their mortality.  All at once, there are widespread cultural trends meant to push death further away and behaviors meant to distract people from how death hangs over us from our very births.  As one person obsesses over their health and safety, someone else might drown themselves in hedonism to focus on something other than serious philosophical matters.  Regardless of how much specific people think about the subject, people die young, and people die old, and the technological revolution that has made life extension more attainable has also provided a way to broadcast death on a greater scale.

If death is inevitable despite the progress made in delaying it, then, other than various logically possible kinds of soul-only afterlives for which there is no evidence, the only pathway left to the eternal life as a mind-body unity that so many people seem to crave is not life extension, but resurrection.  The hope of living forever would lie in being restored to life after death instead of in trying to stave off an ever-nearing, constant specter of bodily failure.  Although I cannot logically prove what will happen to my consciousness when I will die or even if I will ever die, the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ points to an event that Paul calls a foreshadowing of a broader resurrection that will, at last, grant the righteous and redeemed eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:20-26).  The true gospel is this, as put forth in John 3:16: without salvation, the consciousnesses of fallen humans will one day cease to exist, but for those who repent and commit to Yahweh and Christ, there will be eternal bliss.

Living With Preferences (Part Two)

When rationalists struggle with having preferences they might not even wish to have, although they rightly identify them as mere preferences and not as logical truths or moral obligations, they are not succumbing to irrationality.  Reflection, willpower, prayer, and conversation might not change what they feel or desire, but they can still ease whatever psychological torment they might experience over preferring something they know has no truth or moral obligation.  Indeed, telling other rationalists or just being open about their wishes in general can trigger greater contentment with themselves as they live in light of how what they want to be true does not affect logical necessities.

Just as it is not irrational or sinful to have preferences, even if acting on some of them would make one irrational or evil, it is not erroneous to communicate those preferences to others.  Friends, family members, and strangers have not believed in a contradiction or assumption or committed an immoral act by being honest with themselves and with other people about their feelings and desires, however personal, conflicted, or intense they might be.  In fact, communicating preferences can be a cathartic thing that helps someone struggling with the longing for sinful things to be more at peace with not pursuing them, or the sheer existential sincerity could bring the two people closer together.

It cannot be erroneous to convey that which is not irrational or sinful to involuntarily wish for, no matter what the preference entails.  Someone else is not obligated to have those same desires themselves, for their own subjective, involuntary preferences are also not what determines their rationality or moral standing, and yet they cannot be in the right for misunderstanding or abhorring a person for honesty about things that do not reflect their beliefs or actions.  It would be inherently irrational to slander or oppose someone for simply having different preferences when they are not what dictates if a person acts on them improperly. 

Thus, having preferences, reflecting on them, communicating them, and, on the part of the person who is told about the desires, not sharing them can all be done rationally and without moral error.  To ignore or deny ones preferences can be very damaging to one's life even as the emotionalism or relativism of basing one's worldview around preferences destroys lives, and, more importantly, also cuts someone off from alignment with reason and its truths.  To recognize them is not to give in to them.  To discuss them with other people, as vulnerable or emotionally complicated as that could be, is not to demand that they also have the same subjective attitude, feelings, or wishes.

Informing someone engaging in this kind of potentially controversial or challenging vulnerability that one does not share their preferences is also not the same as dismissing them as a person.  It is to admit that one is not experiencing the same subjective perceptions or emotions.  Since preferences do not necessarily involve irrationality or sin unless they are shaped specifically by philosophical falsities, both parties need to embrace that they are not in the wrong unless they choose to believe what is false or assumed.  Each person can still be grateful for aspects of their subjectivity while fully realizing that subjectivity does not stop anyone from aligning with the intrinsic objectivity of reason and never making a single ideological misstep.

Movie Review--Candyman (1992)

"They will say that I have shed innocent blood.  What's blood for if not for shedding?"
--Candyman, Candyman

"I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom."
--Candyman, Candyman


The original Candyman movie is hardly in the same company as some of the more popular slashers of its century.  This does not reflect poorly on Candyman.  Rather, the film towers above many slasher movies with far more current mainstream recognition.  Whereas other slashers from its approximate time were often riddled with horrendous acting or thematic shallowness, Candyman explores its storytelling premise seriously thanks to quality acting and an honest look at how racism can impact African American lives.


Production Values

For a horror movie from the 90s, Candyman has very good practical effects and performances.  The first Candyman movie has much better acting than that of movies like the original Friday the 13th, setting it apart before the conceptual differences between it and other slasher films even begin to show themselves.  Virginia Madsen is even given a nuanced role that distinguishes her character Helen from other "final girls" in several key ways, and Tony Todd makes the most of his few appearances as Candyman himself.  The core performances are excellent, which makes the interactions between Candyman and Helen all the more well-realized.


Story

Spoilers!

Helen, a professor's wife, gathers information about local stories of a supernatural figure called Candyman, an entity that the residents of a nearby apartment building fear as if he is real.  She goes as far as visiting the location of a murder supposedly linked to Candyman, whom she is later told was a black man who was torturously murdered for having a romantic relationship with a white woman.  As one might expect, she begins to encounter visitations from a figure who identifies himself as Candyman, and she finds herself being placed by Candyman in situations that make her look like she herself is murdering his latest victims.


Intellectual Content

Like several other older horror movies such as The Craft, Candyman is far more progressive--in the true and consistent sense of the word--than the vast majority of modern films.  Not only is Helen a courageous and strong female protagonist who can genuinely stand on her own--and who ultimately sacrifices her life for someone other than a love interest--but other characters around her do not even pay lip service to stereotypes that treat women as if they are have a higher moral standing than men.  When Helen appears to be spiralling into a psychotic and murderous fantasy from the perspectives of other characters, no one claims that she must be innocent because women aren't capable of or likely to commit anything malicious.  It is not just the themes of gender egalitarianism that are handled well, though.

The very origin of the titular villain is rooted in the racist actions of certain in-universe characters, and racial tensions are on full display in multiple scenes.  A seemingly throwaway line from Helen even clarifies that she dislikes how a particular community of African Americans was not investigated by the police until she, a white woman, was assaulted, even though several blacks have been murdered in the area (even if it turns out that Candyman was almost certainly behind the deaths).  When Helen dies from burns received while saving the life of an African American baby, many people from the black community she aided with her heroism appear at her funeral.  Even though there is more to Candyman than themes of racism and racial reconciliation, those themes are prominent and important in the context of the film's lore.


Conclusion

The upcoming Candyman reboot, backed by Jordan Peele, has a grand legacy to honor.  The 1992 Candyman is not just a disposable horror movie that lacks depth.  It is a great example of how sophisticated slasher themes are not a myth, but a reality that could be achieved by modern filmmakers far more frequently if the attempts were made.  Horror does not have to be executed in a halfhearted or unintentionally comedic way, nor does it have to lack a connection with important social.  The best horror stories meet all of these criteria.


Content:
  1.  Violence:  Helen is struck on the face with a hook for looking into Candyman folklore.  Later on, a dog's decapitated head is shown shortly before Helen slashes at a woman's shoulder in self-defense.

  2.  Profanity:  Words like "bitch" are used on occasion.
  3.  Nudity:  Helen is told to remove her clothing by a police officer after her arrest, and her uncovered breasts are seen from the side.  As I have clarified multiple times before, female breasts are not sexual and their exposure is thus not true nudity, but American prudery treats it as such.

Sheol And Hades (Part Two)

In equating the concept behind the New Testament word Hades with that of the Old Testament Sheol [1], the Bible makes it clear that its Hades is not like the realm of of Greek mythology, with its Elysian Fields and Tartarus.  Yes, the New Testament once speaks of a Biblical Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4, but it is only a special prison for select fallen angels until they are sentenced to the lake of fire.  As for the Christian Hades, it is the metaphysical state of either unconscious existence or total nonexistence of the soul that all the human dead share before their resurrection (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10), except when human spirits are briefly revived by means such as sorcery (like with the witch of Endor summoning the spirit of Samuel).  After being restored to life as a mind-body unity, the unrighteous dead of Hades/Sheol, the grave, will be placed in hell to be cosmically exterminated (Revelation 20:13-15).  The Biblical Hades is Sheol, and the Biblical Sheol is not a spiritual realm at all.

There are other scattered verses beyond the more explicit and relevant ones like Job 3:11-19 and Mark 5:35-40, which I repeatedly point to, that either sharply clarify or strongly imply that the dead are without awareness, without memory, and without emotion, as Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 so plainly mentions.  The author of Psalm 88 asks in verses 10-12, "Do you show your wonders to the dead?  Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?  Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction?  Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?"  The Psalmist calls the state of the dead oblivion, a term for unconsciousness or nonexistence, and, just as other verses do, uses the word grave to refer to the condition of the dead.  This parallels what David states in Psalm 6:5 when he says to God, "No one remembers you when he is dead.  Who praises you from the grave?"

Other than the very abnormal, temporary revival of Samuel's spirit before his resurrection in 1 Samuel 28, there are only a handful of verses across the entire Bible that might at first seem to present a conscious intermediate state between the first death and the resurrection--after all, even if Sheol/Hades was a realm where the dead consciously exist in the meantime, it would still not be New Jerusalem or the lake of fire (hell) despite what many people claim.  No, the unrighteous inhabitants of Hades, the collective grave of Earth with its unconscious dead, are thrown into hell (Revelation 20:13-14); they are not in hell currently according to the Bible no matter what Hades is.  A passage that, if it stood alone, would seem to characterize Sheol as a literal underworld of spirits is Isaiah 14:9-11.  Of course, the likes of Ecclesiastes 9 far more directly teach soul sleep/oblivion as the current fate of all humankind.  Something like Isaiah 14 is clarified in light of such verses, which are themselves not as overt as those teaching the fate of the wicked in hell is eventual nonexistence (such as Ezekiel 18:4 and 2 Peter 2:6).

If the dead have no perception, no experience of any kind, as Ecclesiastes says and other passages concur with, then there cannot actually be spirits of the departed waiting before their resurrection to receive the spirit of a dead pagan king like Isaiah 14 describes.  Actually, just a single verse earlier (14:8), Isaiah describes pine trees and cedars as celebrating the demise of the king of Babylon (14:4) and using words to convey that how no one will cut them down any longer.  Immediately after this is when the author says Sheol is roused as spirits greet the fallen king and note how weak he now is.  The context is one of highly figurative wording.  Even if this kind of temporary afterlife was what the Bible taught over soul sleep, then the deceased kings of the world would still have thrones in the conscious realm of the dead and continue to rule or at least formally act as if they are, as verse 9 mentions.  There is no mention of torment like so many imagine.  This is not what evangelicals teach when they say that all people went to Sheol as spirits before the resurrection of Christ "moved" the righteous to heaven while the wicked suffer until their resurrection!  Not only is the rousing of Sheol mentioned right in a figurative context, but it is also really the other, aforementioned verses that repeatedly and explicitly teach soul oblivion or sleep for those who are presently dead.

Luke 16:19-31, though, is the most popular passage proponents of Sheol as an intermediate netherworld for conscious spirits point to.  Since these verses are more numerous than three figurative verses in Isaiah, in a separate post, I will address their irrelevance to what the Old Testament and New Testament alike teach about the intermediate state of Sheol/Hades.  The Biblical Sheol is less important than the Biblical heaven and hell that are even more misunderstood due to assumptions and tradition, yet it is important in its own right.  As mentioned in part one of this series, even the nature of justice is affiliated with this: it would not be just for lesser but unrepentant sinners born early in human history to suffer agony during a longer wait for annihilation in hell than a greater sinner born many years later, not that Isaiah 14:9-11 even speaks of torment of the wicked before they are in hell!  The dead know nothing, the Bible says.  They do not perceive or desire or praise anything, according to the provided verses, for their spirits are in a dreamless sleep or do not exist whatsoever for now.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/06/sheol-and-hades-part-one.html

Personality-Based Discrimination

Discrimination according to someone's personality, or perhaps what an irrationalistic outside observer believes someone's personality to be, can be less overt than some other discrimination but still widespread.  In everything from romantic relationships and friendships to business to one-time interpersonal interactions, miscellaneous assumptions, arbitrary traditions, and unverifiable perceptions could fuel active harm.  Aside from this, they are false, so the truth alone makes itself valid no matter what harm errors bring.  Of particular focus here are extroversion, the tendency to gain energy or satisfaction from sociality, and introversion, the tendency to gain energy or contentment from being alone or in smaller social settings.

Extroverts might be misunderstood by irrationalists as being socially intrusive, unable to enjoy time alone, talkative about unimportant things, or uncaring about whether their conversational partners want to talk at all.  These things could be true of individual extroverts, just not because they are extroverts.  Gaining energy from the presence of other people or discussion with them is not the same as being overbearing, egoistic, or unwilling/incapable of identifying signs that those around one are annoyed by one's authentic personality.

With introverts, there are the misconceptions that they are innately shy, uninterested in practically all conversation, lazy, and selfish by supposedly being inwardly focused.  The last of these listed stereotypes is ironically something extroverts might be stereotyped with as well.  In one case, someone is assumed to be selfish because they enjoy socialization and allegedly impose themselves on others, and in the other case, someone is assumed to be selfish because they are not constantly seeking out social stimulation.  Again, introverts do not necessarily possess any trait beyond gaining/regaining energy from solitude--or something close to it.

Introverts can still care about other people.  Extroverts can still care about the personal comfort of other people.  Both the personalities themselves (introversion and extroversion) and the people who have those personality types can be rejected on the basis of stupidity.  For example, extroversion is erroneously expected to be the norm, even a hollow, counterfeit presentation of extroversion, in many corners of the American workplace, where extroverts might be pushed to work harder than introverts or milder ambiverts, while introverts might be penalized for not gravitating towards pointless office talk or giving the "appearance" of investment in a job.

By being encouraged to not understand themselves when reason and introspection are both absolutely certain and universally accessible, people are already pressured to separate themselves from the truth about themselves whenever personality-based discrimination is believed or communicated.  Like all other irrational forms of discrimination (such as by gender, by race, by age, by nationality, by physical beauty, or by economic class) and the associated false philosophies, these concepts are both contrary to reality and very damaging to people in many facets of their lives.  Extroversion and introversion have nothing to do with so many traits that people avoidably use to misunderstand, trivialize, or mock them. 

Living With Preferences (Part One)

Being a rationalist, and someone who unflinchingly recognizes and lives in light of logical necessities, does not necessarily stop someone from feeling discomfort or frustration over specific truths.  Emotions do not cease just because someone is a rationalist, nor would anyone rational wish away their emotions just because they can sometimes be complicated or unwanted in specific cases.  The presence of any emotion at all is not what makes a given non-rationalist irrational in the first place; it is to ignore reason in favor of emotion that constitutes emotionalism.

Though emotions and preferences are not the same thing (the latter does not actually have to involve emotion), neglecting or betraying reason in favor of preferences can be an expression of emotionalism.  Merely having preferences, now, does not mean that someone thinks that they dictate or reveal reality.  Some preferences might be very strong and even be in favor of things that are ultimately logically impossible or epistemologically irrational, but even these do not mean someone flees from reason, makes assumptions, or is anything but perfectly rationalistic about the nature of their preferences.

What, however, of a rational person who still deeply struggles with the fact that they feel an attachment to certain preferences despite knowing that the desired thing in question is false or unknowable?  Some desires or general emotions might weigh down heavily upon a person as they repeatedly dwell on how irrelevant to logical necessities, how morally meaningless, and how subjectively burdensome some preferences can be, particularly over months or years.  It does not follow from someone being flawlessly rationalistic and moralistic that he or she does not face great psychological conflict, perhaps with their emotions refusing to become comfortable with what that person knows or even just otherwise would want to be true.

Once again, preferences are not inherently emotional in nature.  They can exist with or without emotions, but in either case, one can know with absolute certainty what one does and does not want by looking to the inward gaze of introspection while looking to the laws of logic.  As complex as they can be, they are not impossible to identify and understand without error.  It is the general irrationality of assumptions and philosophical apathy, as well as the desperation of personal terror or anxiety over what might be found lurking in a person's mind, that interfere with everyone perfectly knowing the contents of their own heart at any specific time.

If someone's preferences would be contrary to reason if they were to go beyond simply having those preferences to having beliefs based on them, they might be in psychological torment over what they would gravitate towards if it was not for their alignment with the intrinsic, transcendent truths of reason.  A rationalist and a Christian could just as easily be in pain over what they feel or desire as someone who is far from the light of reason and a concern for objective truth.  How are they to handle these burdens on an emotional and holistic personal level, though they can still cling to reason and its truths without falling into emotionalism or irrationality of any kind?  They are not without any possibility of optimism in their suffering even if they feel irrational or evil when they are not.

The Phenomenology Of Focus

There are only so many logically possible things to experience even if factors like psychological perceptions and the laws of nature were to change.  More importantly, there are only so many logical truths that exist and thus there are only so many that can be discovered or revisited.  Indeed, after a point, a person can only revisit, though very few even ever attempt to reach this point.  Whether they maintain or drift away from awe at the philosophical centrality, gravity, or significance of a thing is not something that dictates their worldview.  They could feel less awe due to familiarity with certain things and still have rationalistic knowledge of them, and still live for and be psychologically devoted to them.

The experience of reflecting on long familiar truths, concepts, and experiences in all of their importance or nuance is not one that has to grow less passionate or alluring over time, though.  If it does happen for a given person, diminishing excitement or outright boredom only means that someone has become bored: the thing they are less excited about on an emotional level, or perhaps no longer excited about at all, is no different than its logically necessary nature must be.  There is only a difference in how they are perceived or dwelt on by a particular individual.  Some people speak of how they hope to do all they can to prevent this from happening with a marriage or some other life situation, but there are far deeper, more crucial things than any human relationship.

The same logical truths, the same general introspective states, the same scientific experiences (and the laws of nature behind them, though these cannot be known by humans beyond subjective sensory perceptions), and the same issues can seem new or enthralling long after they are familiar.  As a person revisits and delights in these truths and concepts, whether they are reflecting on them in the midst of shifting life circumstances or just focusing on them in a very precise or different way, he or she in no way is damned to not be captivated by them in deepening ways.  Although only irrationality stops anyone from coming to many logical truths about reason itself and other things no matter their circumstances, these scenarios and how they might change over time can also provide a new psychological context to focus on philosophical truths, first and foremost the inherent, eternal truths of reason.

With or without a dramatic or major life event like a death, marriage, or career switch, the same truths are waiting to be acknowledged and can be returned to or concentrated on as emotions change.  The uttermost depth of logical axioms (and the many logical truths that follow from them) and the immediate experience of introspection can be intentionally savored together day by day as a person's attitude deepens or evolves.  There is no truth or concept of significance that cannot be repeatedly delighted in or clung to as life goes on, whether situations change or remain static.

Emotion can indeed be a great force to keep someone enchanted by logical truths that do not depend on emotion, including truths about God, morality, science, relationships, leisure, and practicality and not just strictly about reason.  How a person focuses on things of an explicitly abstract or more practical kind, especially as they go through their daily personal experiences at the same time, can be at least partly put under the reins of the will.  Trouble feeling emotionally satisfied or elated about the true core, depth, and often complexity of philosophical reality might never strike someone.  Should it strike, there are still things they could do or desire to once again enjoy how multifaceted the experience of coming again and again to the same truths can be.  No one who has thoroughly known the objective veracity or personal urgency of many issues would not also see how regularly dwelling even on the familiar can be empowering, intoxicating, and comforting.

Game Review--Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360)

"Poor boy.  The Sith always betray one another.  But I'm sure you'll find that out soon enough."

--Shaak Ti, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Some stupid developer choices with the camera and controls aside, the HD console version of The Force Unleashed is an excellent game from an older era.  On the Xbox 360, it is a very different game than the Switch/Wii/PSP/PS2 version, which has multiplayer and Jedi Temple levels that are absent here, while this version has you play through parts that were only cutscenes in the Wii like Starkiller's departure from Darth Vader's medical ship.  Some of the biggest differences in the Xbox 360 version are actually the greatly superior graphics and voice acting.  Thanks to these, the mostly identical dialogue is utilized so much better than on the Wii or eventual Switch remaster.  This alone helps The Force Unleashed better convey the Sith cycle of betrayal, the conflict within the main characters, and the moralism at the heart of Star Wars.

Production Values

Some of the cutscenes look distinctively old at this point, but they still are not as bland as many of the Switch version's own cinematics.  Closeups of character faces can display more emotion and detail even in these cutscenes because of this.  In the midst of gameplay, the visuals are massively improved over the other version I have reviewed.  Also very superior in this case is the voice acting, which brings much greater nuance of personality to what often amounts to the exact same lines in the Switch remaster.  Without the dialogue itself differing except in some cases, The Force Unleashed on the Xbox 360 manages to do far, far more with that same dialogue due to the voice performances alone.  Fluctuations in intensity and tone of voice can make an enormous difference in the quality of art.  A particular improvement in this regard is the delivery of Juno Eclipse's words, which were devoid of outward passion on the less powerful consoles.  Lines like Proxy's when he says he hates "being" Darth Vader (Proxy is a humanoid droid that can project himself as holographic figures), to which Starkiller replies "I think he does too," consequently get right to the heart of the themes, plot, and characters so much more for this reason as well.

Gameplay

On this platform, even some of the basic force abilities like lightning and repulse are gradually unlocked by progressing through missions, and Starkiller literally levels up as a character through experience points (called force points) that grant three different kinds of points for character upgrades.  Starkiller truly can become rather powerful by the end of the game if you earn and spend enough points, but enemies tend to not all be easy to defeat.  Sometimes this is even because of atrocious issues with the camera or other such things beyond full player control.  The camera also has a habit of not always focusing on the intended direction or enemy, while onscreen actions do not even necessarily respond immediately to button presses.  Moreover, you cannot stand up after being knocked down by some enemies fast enough to avoid immediately getting knocked down again.

Strangely by comparison to the Wii version, not only is the Rogue Shadow (Starkiller's ship) not a hub between levels, but force pushes are actually weak and not even particularly harmful to enemies, if it harms them at all.  Loose objects from nearby do not hurl towards them as on some other systems.  Still, here, the camera occasionally zooms in on an enemy as they are defeated, another difference, and there are not 200+ holocrons and lightsaber crystals to collect.  Instead, most levels have bonus objectives that reward you with upgrade points.  Two endings await in the final level, one canon to the then-overarching tale of Star Wars, and this and the likely incomplete character upgrades could incentivize a second playthrough.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Like the other version, the Xbox 360 game tells the story of how Darth Vader spares the son of a Jedi who survived Order 66 and fled to Kashyyyk, raising him to embrace the dark side, kill other remaining Jedi, and at some point supposedly overthrow the Emperor.  Darth Vader savagely attacks his apprentice, called Starkiller, at the Emperor's command, but he is resuscitated or resurrected (it is somewhat ambiguous which occured) and tasked by Vader with organizing the enemies of the Empire to distract the Emperor.  Assembling an opposing army, Starkiller becomes more and more invested in the quest of these rebels.

Intellectual Content

With fewer collectibles than the Wii/Switch (and PSP/PS2) game but stronger production values, The Force Unleashed on Xbox 360 has minimal emphasis on exploration and practically no actual puzzles, but the reinforced production values make the story, the characters, and the moralistic issues they face more overtly central.  It could have benefitted from more numerous or lengthy cutscenes in some cases, but the game makes it fairly clear that Darth Vader, like Starkiller until he turns against the Sith and Empire altogether, is enslaved to a master that will use and disregard him whenever it is convenient.  Without getting into moral epistemology, this version of the game at least takes the concepts of good and evil, as well as power and betrayal, seriously.

Conclusion

The story of The Force Unleashed is a great setting to explore the destructive potential of the force more than had been portrayed in gaming up to that point.  Even in the versions with lesser production values, the plot itself was never problematic, only the execution and the quality of things like the graphics or voice acting, but those pitfalls are avoided here.  The difference better vocal performances alone make is no small thing!  Issues with the controls and camera do not overshadow the strengths of the gameplay with all of its non-graphic brutality and the narrative context of that gameplay.  Anyone with an Xbox One can download, play, and screenshot this gem of a game 15 years later, and the sequel, a review of which is approaching, is also available for download.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Without drawing blood, the lightsaber and force attacks are sometimes quite intense, but even impaling an enemy while lifting them off the ground is not graphic.