80 - Video Games, Tolkien, and Sub-Creation

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link in the show notes. Now, if you want to throw a few dollars of support our way, then that would certainly be appreciated, and this would also give you discord access and a voice in future projects, but that's not app required to participate in the book club. Now, for today, I want to read a short article that I recently posted in the Mythic Mind substack, which you can find at mythicmind dot substack dot com and in the show notes. If you aren't subscribed, then go ahead

and do that. This is our community substack, our fellowship substack, and so you get a range of different voices or represented here on this platform. So it's really a I think, a unique platform that we have going on for us. Well, now, as I said, I'm mostly going to be reading this article, but I may add lib a little bit of it along the way. Okay, so this is called video games as subcreation. I wouldn't call myself a gamer, at least

not these days. Between my responsibilities as a husband and a father, as well as my lesser roles, the time simply has not been there for quite a while, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, making up for an over engagement with video games in my youth, I had long become convinced that they were, at least for

the most part, a waste of time. However, as I advanced further into my literary renaissance of the last few years, which has gotten me thinking about questions regarding what is art, what is enchantment, what is beauty, I'm starting to reconsider this prejudice that I've had toward video games based off an over indulgence of my youth. So our games, are they indeed an unhealthy escape from responsibility and real world achievements, And obviously that argument can be made, or might video

games serve some kind of real world benefit? And I'm still working through this question and even exactly how to articulate that question properly, but I'm definitely moving toward the latter possibility that there is some potential value here. Now. As a kid, video games were ubiquitous in my life. I can't remember a time before the nes and the snees were set up, or or before the game Boy was a hallmark of long drives. And yes I'm talking

about the original clunky gray game Boy. I mean equipped with the handy boy of course, to add to the sound, add to the light dynamic, and so I really had that maxed out. And then I remember being taken in by the you know, quote realistic graphics of the Nintendo sixty four and the PlayStation two. And then eventually I moved into primarily PC gaming, and I would regularly ask for a new graphics card for Christmas, and so that's

really my thing for a while. And the reality is that I just played video games far too much in my youth, and I now regret that I didn't spend more of that time reading books. I regret that I only really discovered the value of reading relatively recently, all things considered, within the last several years, while waxing and waning with other responsibilities. This practice, this regular engagement with video games continued largely through my young adulthood until I

was married, at which point I started to play considerably less. Then, once the twins were born, gaming time became nearly non existent. A significant cause for this was immuree necessity, as I saw some fulfilled the greater desire of providing for and spending time with my family. And you know, part of that meant that I had to work a lot. It's important to me that my wife is able to fulfill her desire to be home full time with the kids.

It's important to me that you know my kids that yeah, we're not extravagantly wealthy, but I want them to be comfortable. That's important to me. And so I work a lot, and I also spend a lot of time with them, which means I'm working odd hours sometimes to make that happen, which means there's not a whole lot of time for

things like video games. However, as I continue to consider questions about the nature of enchantment and the power of wonder, I'm starting to conclude that, you know, properly ordered within life's demands, there can be some good in playing games. Now, it's not an overstatement to say that my life was changed by reading Tolkien, not being an active reader in my youth. As I mentioned, I discovered Tolkien later in life,

just a few years before writing this article. I was, of course familiar with Tolkien inspired media such as the Jackson films and various games, but I'm still fairly new to actually reading Tolkien's own words. Knew as in, you know, I just picked up The Fellowship really a few years ago, and from the moment that I opened the Fellowship, I knew that I was engaging with something real, although I didn't get have the categories for articulating what that meant.

But it didn't take me long for me to finish Lower the Rings. I went through that pretty quickly, and then I moved on to Tolkien's other works, including on fairy Stories, in which he describes fantasy as subcreation rather than merely being made up we make in the image of and with the materials made by the one in whose image we are made. Good fiction, therefore, is dealing with things that are It's dealing in the domain of truth. That's

what good fiction does. And this was a very important corrective to a misunderstanding that I had growing up, and that honestly most people today have. So I want thought that if I wanted to learn something, if I wanted to know something true, then I would have to turn to nonfiction, because nonfiction deals with truth and fiction is made up right, and this is typically how these two

categories of literature are divided. One's true, one's made up. Well, this is certainly what I thought for a number of years, although even before picking up Tolkien, I was already starting to spend some time with fairy tales and with folklore, and I was starting to recognize that there is some hidden wisdom there, there is truth to be found there, and so my appreciation for good, so called made up

stories was beginning to grow. But Tolkien helped me to understand that good fiction is not made up at all, but it's rather a secondary creation that is true, and as much as it relates to the way that things are on a metaphysical level. Of course, we don't believe that there are such things as orcs and elves and dwarfs in the same way, at least that they're portrayed

in Tolkien's text. However, there is something fundamentally true about the character of the story, the fibers of his world, the interaction to the peoples that are involved, which is why one can read the Lord of the Rings as an act of Christian discipleship as much as anything else.

When we escape in the right way and into the right substance, we are not merely running away from the primary world, but we are rather escaping to a place of value that we might recover something of that value and bring it back into the primary world, although of course we can get lost along the way, because for better or worse, no one leaves the perilous realm unchanged, because it is there that we come to terms with

ourselves and decide what that relationship looks like. Again, in un Fairy Stories, Tolkien clarifies that it is not the denizens of Ferry that are supernatural, as they're actually hypernatural, but that it is we, with our transcendent souls, that are supernatural. The perilous realm brings us not to heaven or to hell, Tolkien tells us, but to the road that we must walk. It's where our destination is determined. It's where our direction is set. It may be the

path to salvation or damnation. Hence the differing impacts of Galadriel on Borimir and the other members of the party that everyone becomes really more solidified in the direction that they are going. So this is where our relationship with truth, for better or worse, becomes solidified. It's where we can be gained or where we can be lost. And so Tolkien provides us with a framework for relating to truth

even in worlds that are not found in history. And this is immediately relevant for our primary topic in dealing with how we might engage with video games, and in pointing out that this is a place where we can gain something or it's a place where we can lose something, even ourselves. Now Again, in the same essay, Tolkien also discusses why literature is a superior medium for fantasy compared to cinema, and I think that this is going to give us some useful principles as well. In a movie,

he tells us. The audience is given the full story, including plot, visuals, music, etc. There's no room for the viewer to get involved in the process of subcreation. A book, however,

does provide this room. When you read a book, assuming you've not first seen a cinematic adaptation of the book, you fashion so much of the story in your own head based on your background other books you've read, the thoughts floating around in your conscious and unconscious mental spaces, and everything else that you bring with you to the text. You cast the characters and decide exactly what the text looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like.

So we could all read the same story but have different mental adaptations as we contribute to the story through our own process of subcreation alongside the primary author what

they give us. Now, it seems to me that much the same could be said regarding video games, whether we're talking about a story driven role playing game or something more in the sandbox arena, there is space for the player to decide who they are, what their background and motivations entail, and what kind of impact they will have on the world, and whatever else may be relevant to

that particular game. All of This brings us into the act of subcreation, which can be a great aid in helping us to become more enchanted in our primary world experience. Of course, it should be noted that the potential of the reader's subcreation is directly related to the materials that they are provided in the text, and the same could be said of video games. Sometimes the material is so corrupted that one who engages with it is far more likely to be destructive first and foremost to their own

selves than creative in a positive direction. Some books are just bad, Some games are just bad. They're very unlikely to move us in the direction of being more integrated selves, situated to bear primary world responsibilities and to accomplish worthwhile things. Maybe the philosophy at hand is particularly heinous, or maybe the nature of the material is so tedious and addictive it is simply amusing, which is literally to not be amusing that we're likely to throw away time with very

little hope of gaining something back in return. Now, sometimes, and probably most of the time, time, the fault is not so much with the material, even if that might be there, but the primary fault is actually with the person who's engaging with it. As with every vice, it's easy to prioritize whatever lesser good that may come from games over the greater goods that are before us. However, that many, and that you and I can go wrong with games does not mean that games themselves are an evil.

It has been said, do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women, Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? Now, as far as I can tell, this is an apocryphal quotation attributed to Martin Luther, but the principle certainly holds up even if the citation does not. That we can go wrong with video games does not

mean that video games are of necessity wrong. There is a way I believe to go right with games, instead of letting them pull you into the abyss of empty amusement. They can be tethered to virtue, to truth, and to beauty, and in turn they can become points of connection between you and goodness. Furthermore, games can become touch points with our culture and with ourselves for dealing with significant topics

that apply to primary life. As with most mediums, you're likely to find what you are seeking if your desire is rightly ordered, you will find another step on the upward journey. If your desire is wrongly ordered, you will slip further toward the abyss. Discernment rarely involves in all or nothing mentality. It instead involves having honest conversations with yourself and with others. If you are honest with yourself, then in your heart you generally know when something is

upbuilding and when it's not. If you authentically seek the good, you will surely find it, as seeking the good is evidence that you have already found it in some measure. For more on this topic, you can go back and listen to episode seventy eight of Mythic Mind when I talk with Master Samwise and Josh Trailer about this topic

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twenty twenty five. I don't play many video games these days, but there are certain titles that have stuck with me, enchanting the mind of my youth and never entirely fading away. One of the chiefs among these titles is the Elder Scrolls, namely Maruin, Oblivion and Skyrim. The level of artistry, mythology, and lore of this universe is vast and provides a strong representative for asking the question as to how video

games might relate to literature as an art form. Where might it rise to such a level, where must it fall short? And what unique advantages does it possess. For this eight week study will be seeking to answer these questions while analyzing various elements of this franchise, specifically focusing

on content related to Morrow and Oblivion and Skyrim. We'll be taking a look at the philosophy of RPGs and considering the philosophical implications of character creation and formation in an open ended series such as this, and will be looking at the relationship between in game religion, lore, and ideas with our primary world philosophical and religious concepts. Each week will include one to two videos addressing these topics,

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