game eater blog

Been watching that new Kamen Rider lately. I like it.

While the exact mechanics of the dream world have yet to be revealed within ZEZTZ, it seems to take the form of a collective subconscious. Characters impose their own subconscious on the dream world, often to the point of having separate dream selves acting on their own. Since Baku is having a lucid dream, his powers give him some degree of control over the dream world.

Typically, dream worlds are within the confines of one character's mind. Obviously, this is how dreams work in the real world, so it makes the most sense. Plus, showing us a character's inner world is kind of a cheat code for conveying information to the audience. We can see exactly how they perceive things, what they want, what they fear, and far more.

I myself do not dream. I mean, I do, sometimes, but I take medication specifically not to and I have for several years. Obviously I remember how it feels, but it is not a part of my life unless I fall asleep without my medication. Maybe this is why I find such atypical depictions of dream worlds so compelling. As if the world itself can dream.

Obviously, plenty of works have parallel worlds. Parallel worlds (i.e. “multiverse” type stories) often, in me, induce a disconnected feeling. If there are tons of universes and timelines we can jump around, the stakes often feel lower since I have no connection to this parallel world. Not to say I dislike the idea, as it is present in plenty of things I enjoy. However, a dream world can harness this feeling of disconnection for its advantage. Dreams are already a scattered journey from place to place, where the dreamer tries to grab onto meaning anywhere they can. Fictional dreams in the mind of one person often make too much sense, and a world dreaming in fiction feels as messy and blendy as a real dream.

ZEZTZ often jumps from setting to setting with no rhyme or reason during fight scenes. Background characters are rare, making the standard toku fare disasters, bombings, and terrorism feel hard to process (as a victim of explosions myself, that is how it feels when it first happens indeed). When it transitions to the real world, our hero must keep on fighting regardless of his fear. To be a hero, he must disconnect himself and his feelings to fight for the dreams of others, using his power to make other's dreams come true.

While I am not done with the game, I have also fallen in love with the world of Dragon Quest VI. While the dream world is still rather coherent (hell, our game starts with Reck living in the dream world), as Reck's journey continues, he and his companions find out their real-world counterparts are missing and spread around the world, in vastly different positions from themselves. Reck's dream self is a prince, Carver's dream self is missing with his parents worried for his safety, and more is hinted at further. While your average Dragon Quest party member does not talk too much outside of party talk, characters like Carver are clearly shaken by such otherworldly encounters. Many of the changes between the real and dream worlds are played for laughs, but I find such moments of humor really effective for disconnecting the characters from themselves and their position. Captain Blade is called Rusty by his king and his cohorts after they discover the truth and Blade is clearly upset by being treated so different. When your place in the world is put into question, what can be said to be true about yourself? I also really enjoy the section towards the beginning when our heroes are invisible to the people of the real world. You can see everyone going about their day, but you feel really alone being unable to talk to all of them. You can't get a good sense of progression or direction like this. Even after you become visible in the real world, some new party members you find are invisible and struck with relief and new purpose once you note that you can see them. Ashlynn is kinda just climbing a tower because shes a bored, weird kid, but slowly gains purpose traveling with the party just to see something exciting. I can imagine someone would be scared of losing that new purpose, knowing there is a real-world version of you running around and that you are supposed to be the fake one. Once our party starts meeting their real selves, they slowly merge with their real selves, becoming their real self with only memories of their adventures as a citizen of the world of dreams.

A great emphasis is placed on allowing the characters of DQ6 to accept this ego death on their own rather than being forced into it. With the optional party member Amos, he cannot be recruited if you tell him of his fate before he can accept it. Amos is a hero of his village. He's saved the townspeople more times than they can count. However, he has contracted a case of lycanthropy, turning into the “Scrimsley Terror” he is supposed to protect the town from at night. It seems to be incurable, so the villagers decide to hide Amos's condition from him to let him keep playing the hero for the town. He does not take it well at all if you tell him the truth before he is ready to accept it, disappearing before he can be recruited.

I find the celebrated dreamy prose of Haruki Murakami to similarly harness this disconnected feeling for narrative strength. Particularly, it fits the metanarrative of his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls. This novel is a new version of an early short story he wrote by the same name. It also has many similarities to his past novels, particularly Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Our nameless protagonist, an older adult, has spent nearly his whole life looking for a girlfriend he had in high school who mysteriously disappears. His search leads him to the titular city, a dream world where his former girlfriend is still young, everyone speaks in riddles, and everyone works strange, seemingly meaningless jobs. The city itself has some of the most dreamy prose of any of his writing, appearing as a colorless, formless blob. His job in the city is to describe his senseless dreams, a seemingly impossible task Stuck in a rut, and missing his old life, our protagonist escapes the dream world and lives a life disconnected from most people around him. His only friends after a while are a ghost, a strange quiet child, and a coffee shop worker. He spends the rest of the novel recovering from these encounters. However, his stability did not last, as the young boy who visits the library eventually goes to the town himself. Our protagonist's loss has him recover his appreciation for the facets of the real world he has left. As an older writer, Murakami has nearly everything he makes nowadays compared to his greatest works from the past. The City even dares itself to be directly compared to two older works in particular. Feeling like he cannot grasp what made his works great, his past looms ever larger over his life. Only a shock to his system can make him truly move forward.

A dream world within ones own mind can let one stay in the delusions as long as they please. Ironically, it is the looming presence of a world's dream that forces one to wake up.