Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom in the past between primary secondary worlds. Andrew Snyder and
I'm glad that you're here. Hey, they welcome. Today, I'm going to bring you a conversation I recently had with a few other patrons of the Mythic Mind community, and we're going to be talking about Knights of the Old Republic, this great game from two thousand and three, and so, I mean, yes, it's a little bit of age, but there's a reason why we're still talking about it, the reason why this game continues to really be a fan favorite.
It's one of the best things to come out of Star Wars since the original trilogy, and we talked a little bit about that in this conversation. If you haven't played it, I definitely recommend that you pick it up. I mean, yeah, it's gonna be allllle clunky, graphics, will be a little bit outdated, but you know, if you're someone who can play over games, you can get through some of that dimension, then is definitely still going to be worth your time. And also, I have something really
exciting to announce. So you may have noticed that if you've been listening to the show for a little while, that we're starting to branch off in all kinds of new directions, right. I mean, here we're talking about you know, two thousand and three video game, We're talking about Star Wars movies and beyond, we're talking about literature, or we've got our book club going on, and there are a number of other things that are in the works behind
the scenes. And so with so many interests, right, I have so many interests, and then when you broaden that out to the mythic mind fellowship, right, there are so many interests at play here, so many different domains of knowledge of expertise. And part of what mythic mind is about is about about bringing all these things together to demonstrate that wherever you turn, that that wisdom is crying out in the marketplace. In wisdom has a way of
bringing together apparently discordant realities. And so I believe that there is a lot of benefit in looking at philosophy of proper in studying theology, in applying our minds to video games, to books, to literature, to movies to shows. Right,
these are all potentially fruitful domains of engagement. But at the same time, I recognize that not everybody not that not all of our listeners are going to be interested in all these different domains, and so instead of putting everything together into one podcast, especially for the public feed, we're going to be splintering this off into a few
different podcasts. I mean, we'll break it off one at a time, but eventually I would love to have a whole network of Mythic Mind podcasts devoted to you know, have one that's just devoted to literature, to our book clubs, one that's just devoted to philosophy proper, one that's just devoted to video games or shows in movies. And I don't necessarily intend to be leading all these myself, you know,
I'll probably have a part in launching them. But my desire is that as we continue to develop these new shows, these new avenues, that they really do become increasingly communal affairs. Through the Mythic Mind Fellowship, and we have over fifty patrons in this community, and not all of them are actively engaged in producing content, but a number of them
are to an increasing level. And so my intention is to start a number of shows and to make them community efforts, and eventually to hand off the rains entirely that way, I'm not playing such an active role in all these different directions I once. I mean, it'd be fun if I could, but I don't have the capacity for that, at least not until we are at significantly higher levels of patronage. And so I'm excited to announce our first Splinter show, which is going to be based
around philosophy and video games. We're simply going to call it Mythic mind Games. And if all goes according to play, and it should already be available by the time you're listening to this episode, So go look up Mythic mind Games and if it's not available, then it will be really soon. And sometimes it takes a little bit for
new shows to populate it. So just depending on how the timeline sings up here, it's either available right now as you're listening to this, especially if you're listening to through the public feed, or it'll be available very soon. That's gonna be the Mythic Mind Games podcast. And this is gonna be a way to just engage in this this new medium, new to us medium of you know, getting into especially like role playing games, getting into the stories that they provide and I think that there's a
lot of benefit there. I think there's a way to connect to a lot of people. Now I've mentioned before that, you know, I'm not somebody who, at least for the last decade or so it has played a lot of video games. I've played a lot in my youth, but you know, since getting married, since getting you know, into various jobs, especially having kids. You know, it's kind of something I just let go, and I think for good
reason for a time in my life. But I'm starting to remember or to recognize that there is a lot of almost literary potential in games that are written really well, and I think that they engage us on a different kind of level. And so I think that there's benefit in getting into this and as well as just connecting
to a different niche community. And so if that interests you, then go look up the Mythic mind Games podcast and over there you're going to find an introductory episode, and then also, hopefully by the time you're listening to this one, the Kotore two The Knights of the Old Republic two conversation will already be available over there. But for now, let's go ahead and get into our Kodere one conversation.
Oh but real quickly, before we get started, my internet was strangely spotted during this conversation and say, at one point there's kind of a break and you'll probably pick that up when you're listening, and I put a little text que in there if you're watching this on YouTube. All right, now, let's go ahead and get into this. All right, welcome to Mythic mind as where you continue our Star Wars series, this time talking about Knights of the Older public. And in many ways, this idea is
what spawned this entire series. Josh and I just had some back and forth comments on somebody else's tweet that was, you know, related to to Kotor, and we just decided to, you know what, if we talked about this game sometime and out of that, I decided, why not, why not do a whole Star Wars series. So that's really the origin sorty of this whole thing that we're doing here. And I'm I'm excited about this. This is it's kind of a fan favorite game in the Star Wars gaming community.
I mean, in my reckoning, it's one of the best things to come out of the franchise since the original series. It's something that I returned to every few years or so, and I think that I think we'll start as we more or less as we did last time, and just talking about our own background experience with the game. You know, kind of you don't have to go in super detail,
but you know, basic why you in this conversation. That's really what I'm asking there, And so let's let's start with that, just kind of going around and you know, I'll say on my end, you know, like I said, I I enjoyed the game when it came out, and was it two thousand and three, so it's quite a while ago, but I come back to it every few years because I just think it's so gripping in a
story level. It's it's philosophically engaging, especially for you know, a a game that came out at a time when I mean, I think over time, stories have developed a lot more in games.
I mean that.
That's that's you know, cutting a lot short. But I think that we deal with some interesting ideas regarding identity. I think we've run into some interesting ideas regarding like even like the Star Wars concept of the light and the dark side. I think that there's a lot there that often gets overlooked simply on the entertainment level. But that's kind of vague. What We'll get more detail, but
I want to hear from everyone else here first. We'll just go around here, Josh Whan, you tell us a little bit about why you're here.
Sure. So as far as my background with Star Wars, I don't remember the first time I saw the original trilogy because I just grew up watching them, so I have no memory of seeing any of the first three movies for the first time. My dad saw them when they they came out in theater as he was, you know, a young man, so he was always a fan. Showed them to me and my older siblings. So it's kind of really my background with Star Wars I was. I was a child when the prequels came out, so I
saw those in theater myself. But as far as Cotur, obviously, I was also a child when these two games came out, and my brother got co Tor one for the original
Xbox in two thousand and three. He's a couple of years older than me, so I don't know if my parents would have gotten it for me based on my age, but being a younger sibling as that works sometimes I was able to I was able to play that I was about eight years old, I think when it came out, and it was it was pretty challenging for me as an eight year old just like you know, totally new,
totally new world. I never played like, you know, Dungeons and Dragons or never Winter Nights or anything like that, so I didn't really understand the system. But the idea of actually freely exploring a Star Wars world and being able to choose my own pathway and dialogue options was
really interesting to me. But I, like you, Andrew, I've returned to this game and especially the second one as well, throughout really my adult life, so basically every few years as well, continue just to find them to be really just a rich, literary and even philosophical experience. As I play through these, I think what these games really do well is I think I always feel like one of the best of not the best parts of Star Wars
is the world building in it. It's just one of the coolest worlds, certainly like for a sci fi or a space opera however you want to class fi it, I think just the aesthetics, the technology, the way that you know, stormtroopers and clone troopers look and the concept of a Jedi, everything about it really has a great foundation to work. But I think what Cotor does so successfully is it takes what the foundation of the original trilogy built and it tells stories within that world and
expanse upon it so well. But I think that's really one of the reasons I returned to these games so much. But also I just think they're really interesting to play through in just the replay value of making different choices in really seeing how that plays out. So I'm a huge fan of these games. Really my favorite things that have ever occurred in the Star Wars universe personally, So that's really my background with them.
Well, and I asked some follow up to some of that, but I want to I want to hear from everybody first, So, uh, David, tell us a little bit about why you're here, and by the way, it's going to see you again that you haven't I think been here since the Lewis course, so it's about a year or so, so good to have you back. Yeah, tell us a little bit about you know, why you're here, why you're interested in this.
Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Yeah, I uh, and I missed the other Star Wars discussion, so I'll just say I was three when the original A New Hope came out in theaters, and I remember seeing that From that first viewing, all I really remember is that the sand people scared me.
But I still you know, I loved Star Wars as a child.
And saw Empire Strikes Back at the theater at least a dozen times when I was six, and spent three years thinking that Darth Vader was surely not telling Luke the truth, that he couldn't really be his dad, this horrible bad guy, you know. So yeah, I grew up loving those and you know, I'm the guy who's got the original laser disc set of all of the original trilogy and without any of the later editions and that
sort of thing. But and I played. I've always been a video gamer, so I've played a lot of Star Wars games over the years, and mostly you know, they were action oriented and based on those three movies or later other movies, you know, pod racing and things like that. But Kodor was really the first time where it was they could really tell some story, a unique story. I mean, you know, they had some of the Jedi Outcast games and Dark Forces and things told a little bit of
a different story about tangential characters. But I was really excited to have an RPG sort of a game in the Star Wars universe, so I'm fairly positive. I pre ordered it for my Xbox when it came out, so I haven't Honestly, I've not had a complete playthrough again since it originally came out, so my memory of it is not super detailed. There's high points and aspects of the gameplay, and I've i played it again some with my son. He hasn't completed it either, but he has
been playing through it a bit recently. But yeah, and I loved the next one. I haven't played the online game, but I saw you guys talking on Twitter about how it's fantastic, so I may have to try to look at that at some point, but yeah, that's my experience.
Cool, And yeah, we will do a follow up on the second game, which I feel like is a little bit more philosophical in nature than the first one, so that'll be fun. But yeah, and again I'll fall up in a little bit. Ian go ahead and tell us a little bit about your your experience here.
Yeah, I didn't actually play that many video games as a kid, just some PC games. I was the oldest of eight kids, so my parents didn't really let us have a lot of things that could have higher ratings, because if I played something that all my little siblings have want to play something, and they didn't want to have to deal with, well, you can play this, but your siblings can't, So they just tried to keep.
Us all at a kind of PG level.
When I got to college, my roommate my senior year had an Xbox and I actually played Kotor two first the week I was supposed to be studying for the gre and I played thirty four hours that week and still did reasonably well on the test, thankfully. But I got the PC version of both Kotor and Kotor two my next semester and played through those, and as David mentioned, you know, you had your Jedi outcast, you had your
Dark Forces. But I really think that nice to the Little Republic and then the Old Republic allow you to live in the Star Wars galaxy much more than those games. Those games are very linear. I think they have pretty small levels and you don't have a lot of character interactions where you have any control of who you are as a character, your character says what is scripted, whereas in nice ye Old Republic you generally have at least
free options. You have your nice or light side option and your dark side option, and you're kind of a neutral option or maybe an unexpected or funny option, and that allow ability to shape your character I think allows you to feel immersed in a way that, even though it doesn't have like the immediacy of a first person shooter gameplay, I feel like I've lived in Star Wars more in the nice Little Public series and the Old Republic much more than any Battlefront Tour first person shooter type game.
All Right, So where I just cut off, Ian was saying how immersive Kotor was, and that's where I lost did you. I don't know how far you went after that?
No, that was That was my main point.
Is I feel like one of the reasons that I think Kotor and the two sequels, I consider the Old Republic a sequel as well, why they're so beloved still.
I mean, there's a ton of.
Games from two thousand and three and two thousand and four and five that are not remembered at all these games I think are remember because you feel like you live because you interacted with characters. You you formed these relationships and you made decisions that change the fate of the galaxy. It wasn't just I shoot a bunch of things and I.
Went, yeah, I think that's right, that that choice dynamic. The fact that you can change the ending, you can change the relationships you have. I mean, yeah, I guess spoilers are okay at this point, but I mean the fact that you can, you know, kill off half your party at the end if you decide to go that
route uh in in you know, pretty awful ways. I mean how you can like, you know, make make Zalbar kill mission for you like it's it can get pretty dark, which you know does make me wonder, like one of the things that makes this game great, what makes you know, the kind of BioWare models so great is the fact that you can, you know, make all these choices is to shape the story that you're that you're living through.
Is it okay to be the bad guy? Like like it's It's something that I don't really struggle with, but I do find that more often than not, when I get the choice, I end up going the dark path, you know, whether it be this game or Elder Scrolls
or whatever. I usually am a bad guy, and I wonder what that says about me, And so, you know, I do wonder, like, do do we just totally disconnect ourselves from the you know, the game that we're playing, or like, I don't know, I don't know what do we think about that?
I think about that some, like especially on online games, like if you're a bad guy in an online game, you are still actually making moral choices that affect another human being. Like I remember the old Ultimate Online would let you be a thief and you could literally steal things that someone had worked hard for right out of their pocket. But at the same time, I'm thinking, but it's a game, and these are part of the rules
of the game. But I still you know, when I was playing that I would try to only steal from people who were player killers, you know, like some kind of a Robin Hood sort of an idea. But to your point, and you said that you tend to gravitate towards playing a bad guy in these games, I I have.
Trouble doing that.
I always play the good guy, and I I do feel like It's harder to be the bad guy in these games a lot because a lot of times you don't know, Okay, am I saying something mean? Or am I turning down a quest or you know, not letting this person join my team? Like I want everyone on my team. I want to do all the quests, but I also want to be a bad guy. But you know, I'm being the good guy. It usually doesn't come with some of the costs that that being a moral person
would have in real life. You know, in a game, you may you may turn down a little bit of money or something from from a character when you you know, you found their cat or whatever it was, But it doesn't have the things that come back to bite you as much for being villain as often as they do.
I mean by aware they try to do.
That mass effect has some of that where you might make a morally bad choice early on that two games later comes back to bite you. And I appreciate the attempts that they try to make at that, But yeah, it's okay to be a bad guy in a story. You can't have a story without the bad guy, right.
Plus, in a game like Star Wars, I mean, you get all the cool powers if you're bad, right, the lightning and I mean the you know, the force persuasion that's usually a bad thing in these games. It's just I don't know, it's a lot cooler, all right, So I feel exonerated. It's okay to be a bad guy in games. Well, I mean, Josh, what do you think is something that's I mean, maybe philosophically compelling about this game.
I mean, obviously when we talk about a game that has staying power, there's something real to it, right, something that resonates with us. I mean, what's something things out to you?
Sure? So, I mean, uh, speaking just at an extremely high level here, I mean, it's it's a game of it's a game of ethical dilemmas, right, Like you're you have a lot of you know, difficult decisions to make that ultimately they have like consequences for you as a player in the game, but also just for like how the story plays out, right, And I think that was one of the unique interesting things that it was that drew me to this kind of game, because that was that was a new idea for me when I was
when when this game came out, I didn't really played anything like that up to this point. But just like the the I mean the overall theme that like choices matter. I think that's that's really like a theme that plays throughout the game and it's kind of embedded into the
mechanics of the game itself. Right. So you encounter Juhani in the dan tu Weien grove, right, and it's like, this is a playable party member that you can potentially have in your party for the rest of the game, right, or as an option to have in your party for the rest of the game, And you can not show mercy to her and literally kill her and she's never available again the rest of the when she just dies there.
This is see Dantuine's what the second like, I guess it depends on the or No, it's the second planet the game because you have to go there after terrorists. So it's like this is like pretty early in the game and you just you just killed somebody who has the potentiality to be in your party for the rest of the game. Right, So it's like the it shows you that the consequences of your actions really matter there and there's something there's something even within each of these interactions.
It's philosophical, right, Like is it is it justifiable to kill Jowhani?
Right?
Like is it you know the classic like whin do you align with? Like Emperor Palpatine and episode three, Like it's like he's too dangerous to be left alive? Like is she too dangerous to be left alive? Or same with like Bastila when she you know, flips to the dark side after being uh in a tormented and enticed by Malik when she gets captured? Is she too dangerous
to be left alive? And that's an even bigger question with Basila because just the the sheer potential and mastery she has, just she's she's the prodigy, right, Like she's naturally gifted, she's unbelievably talented with a light saber with the force, and it's like that's her being on the opposite side of you is scary, right, So you do you just do you kill her off?
Like?
Is that the better choice for not just you and your party, but for for the galaxy, for for everybody?
Right?
Like those are the kind of dilemmas that you're actually faced with and thinking through in this And then I think, like I don't and maybe we can just like wait to get into this one, because it's obviously like a kind of a big talking point for Kotor one, but even the think about like what the message actually is with Revin And obviously that's like the big spoiler in the game, right is that like like that's you, the character you're playing, your your memory you got knocked out.
Your memory was basically your memory of all these things is gone, like it's it's disappeared and vanished, and now you're playing through the game, and you know, what does that actually say about Revin? The fact that you were you know this this wicked uh sith Lord and you lost your memory and now you could potentially maybe it's through the influence of the party members that you interact with, or maybe it's other circumstances and factors that we could
consider as well. But what actually causes Revin to be on the light side this time? Like how why does why? Like why doesn't revn end up the same way again? Or if you pick the dark side path, it's like Revan does just end up being the sith Lord again because you kill Malick and if you spare Bastola, she's basically just like your number one and she's number two, right, Like the Sith way, and so it's like, what is
what are all these things saying about about Revin? It's like in the different pathways you choose, like, there's a lot. I think there's more to be explored with that than maybe anything else in this game personally, but I'll leave it at that for now.
Yeah, there's definitely that tension between pragmatism and I don't know, virtue for the sake of virtue or or something of that nature, you know, of pity versus justice. Like those things definitely coming to play here, you know, when you're talking about like do you what do you do with Juhani? Now, unless I'm playing a Light Side character, I usually kill
her because I don't find her very compelling. But that aside that, you know, there's that ongoing question or even like what the Jedi did to Revin, you know, is that moral in that they didn't just execute justice on him, they reprogrammed him like it. And you know, even so, even if he decides to choose the light Side, is he actually choosing the Light Side or is he just a pond of the Jedi? And at that level, like
where does morality even fall here? I think at best, the decision to wipe his memory reprogramming him is questionable. It in many ways, it could be argued that they're just as pragmatic as Reven was when he runs off to the Mandalorian Wars and you know, essentially becomes Darth Reven, that he chose to do take the pragmatic approach of I need to secure this end even as the Jedi did. And then the question could be asked, are they even any different?
And that's why I think it's so important that they include the character of Jolie, and I'd love to have an extended discussion about Jolie, what he believes, whether you agree with him as a person, as a player, and what does that mean for the meaning of the game. I mean, I think that there actually is a meaning
of the game. I think that even though Ioware tries to make it fun for both good and evil playthroughs, I think that the light side playthrough is supposed to be the light side is supposed to be the choice that is right. It is not a world where good and evil are equal. But I guess that's kind of I guess I'm kind of jumping ahead of the discussion because I think Joelie asked us to step back and say, well, what is good? What is evil? Can you be Gray?
I mean, that's kind of a really hot question, is can you be Gray?
Yeah, I agree that he's definitely an interesting character. He to me, he's very much a Qui Gon kind of figure in that he's obviously a good guy. I mean, in the choice in the light in the dark, he's obviously on the light side, even though he's not in line totally with the Jedi, you know, even as Qui
Gon was. And I think that these characters help us to recognize that the Jedi are not equivalent to the Light Side, that the Jedi are in order that are trying to devote themselves to the Light Side, at least that's their ideal, but they are, I mean, they're a human, fallible order. And I think there's plenty of room for even critiquing the Jedi code itself, recognizing that it is only good inasmuch as it reflects the good, which is
not the same thing as the order itself. And so, you know, a lot of times, I think in the way we can oversimplify Star Wars, we just have, you know, the Jedi in the sith our stand ins for the light in the dark, and that's not exactly right. I don't think that's what Star Wars is meant to provide us with. And so I think that the Qui Gon character, I think that Joe lieb Bindo character, I think that they serve to demonstrate that we're dealing with good and evil,
not simply Yin and yang. That this is not purely Machiavellian. And so I a Manichean is actually the order meant to use there Makiveli goes back to the pragmatism conversation. Yeah, it's not entirely Manichean, and so yeah, I think that's that's largly what Julie provides to the discourse.
At least that's what I think is his highlight.
I think that's really my favorite. But replaying cot Or, I didn't get this when I was like eight to nine years old, right, But I think I replayed it when I was about eighteen. Ma'd be like, no, maybe like twenty twenty one, and you know, I did. I didn't know what I know now because it's been about
ten years now. And then thankfully i'm you know, maybe a little bit smarter and wiser than I was when I was twenty, thankfully, But these type like the way it actually challenges that notion of you know, black and white, good and evil like that, you know, challenging the notion that like there's this Manichean duellist kind of construction to the Star Wars universe right where it's like the Jedi are the good guys. They like represent all that is
substantially good. The Sith are they're they're the baddies. They represent everything that's substantially evil. Right, But that's challenged in Kotor, and it might be challenged in other places.
I'm not.
You know, super well versed in like the Star Wars Lord to be honest, as much as I just am with these games specifically, but that's what I was really drawn to replaying them as an adult. And well, I'll certainly save this for the next conversation, but I mean, like, nobody challenges those ideologies better than Kraa in the sense, right, And that's what I love about Koetor too so much.
But you do see that with Jolie in a sense here taking like a good but like you know, neutral yet also good, Like he's somewhere on that spectrum right between like neutral and good. But he's got he's got a different perspective than than the Jedi order on what it you know, perhaps what it means to be good. And I think that's what's so he really opens up so many, so many ideas and ways to think about the philosophy of Star Wars, and that's I think the best part of these games for me personally.
Yeah, I completely agree. I really appreciate that you highlight that. Even though Julie, you know, you can look at him from like a gameplay perspective. He's got the stats of a gray Jedi, and he's listed as gray. But if you listen to what he says, if you think about him as a character, he chooses kindness. He chooses to do the right thing. He's never interested in being like an ambiguous figure. He's not like sometimes it's okay to torture people and sometimes it's okay to be nice to
People's that's never he says. The Jedi have the right goal, but the institution has rotted. The institution has corruption and self interest and institutional power at stake, so they want to keep their control, so they refuse to let you marry, they refuse to let you have your own splinter Jedi orders, And you can really look at that as kind of
like a Catholic versus Reformation perspective on Christianity. Like Jolie and Qui Gon, as you point out, are very much the Martin Luther figure pointing out, no, you don't have to have celibate clergy, No, you don't have to have these things. You can marry and stilly committed to the good, which, of course, in our understanding is God. And I think you can see the light side of the force as also a divine a good in that sense and definitely not in a Yin and Yang perspective.
And so.
I think that's a really good thing to remember, because I think a lot of fanboys like to say, oh, well, I like to use sith lightning.
But I also don't want to like be corrupted like Emperor Palpatine.
I don't want to look ugly like it's a very superficial look at what gray means.
And I think Andrew is absolutely right.
It's not gray as in, you can be fifty percent good and fifty percent evils that you're rebelling against certain dogmatism of the Jedi order and seeing the Light as being not identical with the order. So I think that's a really good way of looking at Joey.
Yeah, and I think that what you said it does a good job of dispelling the myth of neutrality, that nothing really is neutral. And as as Augustine says, you are what you love, which is also a very platonic idea, obviously that it's not even so much where it is that you're situated, it's what are you facing, what are you moving toward. That's fundamentally what defines you. And obviously, in a Joey character, we see him moving toward the good.
And I feel.
Like in all these Star Wars conversations, I want to keep emphasizing that, you know, especially in the original series, and I think even beyond to some degree, although it gets a little bit more gray that they don't talk about in the first series, they don't talk about the light side of the Force, or at least they don't make it a substantial dualism between the lightside and the dark side. You just have the Force and then you
have the dark side. It's the reality and the shadow, not too equally contrasting realities and even though I think the language surrounding that gets increasingly blurry as you go through developments in Star Wars, to the point where eventually it kind of sounds a little bit gein and yang at times, and the way that they talk about it,
that's not where things began. And I feel like even in something like Kotor, where you have light side and dark side, that even still I think that it's framed essentially as the reality in the shadow what should be, versus an inversion of what should.
Be of what's real.
And so yeah, I think that the movement away from identifying light side strictly with the Jedi and making the Jedi under judgment of the light I think that that does a good job of demonstrating the fact that I think it's actually easier to understand Star Wars from a Christian perspective than from a strictly I don't know, zen
Buddhist perspective. Even though like that's there and obviously an influence in Lucas himself and sort of starting things, I feel like that is less of a of a pillar of Star Wars then the more sort of Augustinian Platonic idea of the good. I think that Kotor demonstrates that if you're attentive to it. Not that I don't know if they have great philosophers who are writing these games, I don't know, but at least implicitly, I think that's what is the best way to frame the structure of
the world. So what do we think of what happens with Revin? I mean, would you consider this redemption or oppression on behalf of you know, with the Jedi do to him? Assuming he you know, go light side of the story.
Well, there's a lot of ways you can choose to do it you. I mean, I've thought about this, but I'm kind of an irreparable goody two shoes. I always do lifeside because it makes me feel bad to do your dark side. But I've thought if I were like a more intense role player, I could really see Revan going on an arc when he discovers the betrayal of the Jedi, he goes dark side, like he just fully
loses any respect he has for these people. Alternatively, if you develop a relationship with Jolie and with Bastola, and you like buck the Jedi orthodoxy, I think that is a true redemption because it is him making choices. If you're just kind of mindlessly going, this is what I get for light side points, and I want the points. Of course that's not a redemption. But if you're forming the relationships and having a commitment to doing the right thing,
I think that would be a relationship. And that's why it's a more immersive game than just good or bad points.
Now I don't recall is is he really programmed or is he just tabula rossa? Because I know in video games, you know, they do lots of things to try and bring you into the story. You know, they'll make you know, like Gordon free doesn't talk, so you'll feel like Gordon Freeman in the Half Life games and things like that. But real common one is the character wakes up or the really common trope is the character has amnesia, and
they do both of those in this one. So if they just made you a blank slate and you don't have the past experiences or whatever led him to become the reven that you're hearing stories about as you play the game, then I feel like it's just a story about what is it that makes us who we are? How do we become who we become? But yeah, if the Jedi literally programmed him in some way, then that would be problematic, but I don't remember exactly.
How it was. You guys could speak to that.
So even if they don't necessarily program him, they very least deprogrammed him in that, you know, they wipe his memory of being Darthur Evans. That way, maybe he does start with a tabula rasa, let's just start from the beginning.
But that still raises the question, I mean, is this what we should try to do, like chemically or however with you know, gross criminals or you know, villains and that we are POWs and from the other side, like, you know, do we take the guandhanam obey inmtes and just start wiping the memories to give him a fresh start.
I think that there's still some some moral questions to be raised on that level, for sure, And I mean I I don't really I don't really know, because I mean I feel like in the real world I would be able to come out pretty clearly and say no, that's that's not a good thing.
But at the same time, maybe on the pragmatic level, I mean, I don't know.
I think so much of this is my feelings about this are so tied to Koto Or two because Koto Or two is a direct sequel. It's very much about the fallout of the choices that the Jedi Order made in kotor What And I I don't want to come out and say kill all the Jedi, because That's not what I'm intending to say.
But I do feel like the Jedi are.
Revealed in Kodeoar one and Koteo War two because a lot of the Council members kind of have a crossover. They're revealed as as selfish and cold, and I would say the game intends us to be critical of that.
I don't.
I don't think that the Kotar games are particularly proh Jedi leadership at least.
Yeah, I think that's fair that we we are. I think we are called to question the institution, and like you said, I think that pick up even more so
in kode War two. Looking back, you know, I kind of like the way that you framed the and the way that you framed the way the story could have gone where you know, after the revelation, you have Revin sort of maintain the light side, but move in a different direction, right, you can move against the institution to speak that led to this point while still maintaining fidelity to the Light, maybe even reforming it or you know,
some splinter Jedi order or something. I think that would actually make a really compelling story, So I would be okay with them making some tweaks when they finally get around to the movie out of this. Well, let's see what else? Do you guys have anything else that you feel like bringing up here?
Does anyone have any comments on like favorite characters, favorite interactions, or even favorite weapons, or like what makes the game play itself fun for you?
I mean, I think one of my favorite exchanges is when you know, Basili's questioning you about some stuff, and I think it's if she's questioning you if you're starting to go dark side, and you can say that you're secretly a Hut in disguise trying to take over the galaxy. It's one of my favorite options.
But I think my.
Favorite character, I gotta go h K. It's just so iconic, so entertaining. I mean, he's so unique. I mean he's one of the first at least that I know of, like Star Wars droids with like real personality.
So yeah, I mean that's gonna be my my.
Number one, Josh, what do you have to say?
Say a nice choice meat Peg, that's a yeah, that's a tough that's a tough one. I I mean, I love Candorous, but I love him more and even more like Kotar two. So I guess that's that's tied in. And you wanted to talk about Koetar too, So I'm
gonna apologize and advance for that. But I mean I have kind of like I had thought about this not too long ago where I want to I don't know if anyone's ever done this, where they like play a game, where they've read a book or something, and I'm just gonna like trace this theme specifically as I like go through this or this this idea maybe not even necessarily a theme and kind of talking about like joe Lee makes me, you know, I want to want to re
explore that a little more. And I'm almost thinking, like is he almost like you know, could Joey like almost in some way be influenced by like the like the nineteenth century like Transcendentalist movement in some way just like this this idea of like individualism and self reliance, like this sort of this love of nature, like I'm I'm drawing blanks here, so I'm not going to do an incredible idea of like explaining or exploring this because I
haven't done it yet. But I mean he's basically like, right, he's like reserved himself to living living in a place that's full of nature. But he's really in like the the shadow the shadow area of that I can remember what it's called, like a shadow lands or whatever, like
the bottom floor of a kashikh. But like it's it's almost like there's like this, there's possibly this is this transcendentalist approach that Joe Lee might have to the way of the Jedi, right, And I'm like, maybe maybe I'm totally off base and saying that, but I'm kind of thinking about that now as different ideas are popping in my mind and I had to explore it to really like actually like you know, put out a thesis and
like actually consistently and coherently defend that. But there's there's something there right, like where it's like he's he's he's individualistic, like he's on his own, he's relying on himself, like he's often you know, he's he's off in nature in a sense, I don't know.
I'm thinking.
I'm thinking of, like, you know, maybe this is maybe there's like a there's a paper or something or a video topic here, right, Like it's like like Ralph Waldo Emerson and joe Lee Bindo. I don't know, maybe we'll we'll see, we'll see maybe.
Forward here forthcoming up stack on this.
It's an idea, right, Like, it's I gotta believe there's something there, but maybe maybe that'll inspire me to replay the game just for the purpose of looking into that. But I Joey's interesting, like he's like I've often thought like what if like we could just like get like, you know, a lengthy conversation where we could just like walk Joey Bindo and Kraya in a room together and just hear them talk about like the Jedi in the Sith.
Like.
That's that's all I want in the world, right, That's I just want that. And maybe we can like create like a fictional, uh like socratic dialogue between Joke Lee and if anybody that's smarter than me wants to do that, please do it. That'd be excellent.
Well, I mean, I know David has some experience with AI creations, right, No.
Don't don't saddle me with that, just just a little playing around. Yeah, well, I would say, yeah.
I also loved that character h K forty seven.
Doesn't he preface what he's saying with like an explanation of the kind of statement that he's making, right, okay, Yeah, and even if it's to his own detriment, he will say that there by a ware did that in Mass Effect as well, that there's a whole alien race called the Elcore who's unable to convey emotions to others. So they start every since, you know, with barely veiled sarcasm, and then they say whatever it is.
You know. Uh so, yeah, I think they wanted to.
Continue that idea, but yeah, I also liked some of the aspects, like the idea of the Star Wars universe having to invent bladed weapons that could parry a lightsaber, which of course is necessary for gameplay purposes, but it
also makes sense in universe as well. In you may know from reading books if those kinds of ideas probably predated this game, but this was my first experience with that sort of a thing, and I'm just always fascinated with the attempts at morality systems in games, especially earlier attempts, because there there are always times where it says, okay that you made a you made an evil choice, and I'm like, now, wait a minute, if you just ask me to explain why I made that choice, I think
I could explain why I did not think that was an evil choice. But also there's things like correct me with them if I'm wrong. But I think you can like make a deal to just enslave all the wookies in this game, and if you've you know, helped enough space old ladies across the space street, you're still a Jedi after doing that. And I think that that kind of just shows how the idea of morality being a balance of a scale just doesn't doesn't really work out.
But I'm always fastned with seeing how games attempt to convey the importance of moral choices.
Yeah, I agree that moralityism is sometimes really fun to game, and especially when you get to the second game where you can get your characters to influence other characters but their reality stays the same. But in the first game, I would say, one of my very favorite things is it really the squad mcanic. You always have your two companions. Now, some people go hard mode and just do one, but I really like having three characters. And here's a very
rudimentary strategy. You'll have one character who's like very strong and very like your Wookie.
You know, you have a Wookie.
So they they go up and they're like in the faces of the other characters. And then you've got your other characters with blasters and they shoot from far away, and that way you can really get more damage done while keeping your more squishy characters safe. And so I like the way that that forces you to think in a more tactical and relational way because a lot of the characters are their personality kind of matches their character build. So I like the relational and character aspect to.
That gameplay piece.
And I would say my personal favorite character is Basola because I love seeing, you know, the perfect student thrust into the real world for the first time and they really struggle, like they're they're forced into all these emotions and things that the textbook didn't cover, and so I love how they they forced Basila through that experience and I definitely related to that myself. Plus, of course, Jennifer Hale's voice acting is superb.
Yeah, they did do some interesting things with her, you know. I like even how she turned to the dark side. I think there's some significant stuff going on in that scene. How you know, he doesn't so much Malik when he captured her, doesn't so much threaten her, doesn't even entice
her with like all the power she can have. I mean he does, but by inflicting it upon her, right, And so it's I mean it's a pretty dark psychology, but also dealing with some reality here that those who have suffered most can and potentially use that pain to then inflict upon others as a way of grasping at power.
And so I think that they're doing something pretty significant there regarding I guess the nature of villainy that a lot of times those who are most likely to inflict pain on others are those who have suffered great pain themselves and they're latching out or they're reaching out for some kind of power of their own, and that takes
the form of inflicting damage on other people. And so I think that they do some really significant things with Basila between just the you know, the diive student thrown out into the real world with you know, with great power and great potential and then as well as dealing
with her fault to the dark side. I think that they do do a lot of interesting psychological things with the character of Bastola, So I would echo with that and saying that she's probably one of the more substantial characters, even though I just like HK.
And I didn't remember that. Well, it's Jennifer Hale, right, Yeah, that she did her voice. She's she's probably the busiest voice actress in video games. And she's also the female commander Shepherd in Mass Effect, which is another I've mentioned him a lot. I know more about Mass Effect than I do about Kotor. I've played it a lot multiple times, but Andrew hasn't played it yet, so it'll be a while.
Before we have a discussion on that.
Yeah, a discussion anytime.
So we know.
It is in my Steam library.
I picked it up during a sale, but I've not made it there yet and I don't I don't know what I will, but I'll get there eventually. I got the off course with the Oblivion remaster, but hey, well anything else, you know, as we've pinted that, I think that we'll have more to deal with when we get to Kotor two. But is there anything else any of you want to say? Abou Kotor one?
Oh?
One more thing is the music for Kotor two is movie level, like Jeremy Soul's themes for Darth Mallick and Bastola and the Dan Tween. When you get onto Dan June and you're walking around, just the music that comes on is just glorious. It's it is an experience. And even though the gameplay is for sure twenty twenty five years old, now it's worth playing through.
Yeah good, oh no, go ahead, no, yeah, I'm just gonna echo that. That is still it's a great experience. I mean, even though by today's standards, Yeah, the controls are kind of clunky, Like the whole system is kind
of clunky by today's standards. But also I mean, I don't know if it's just because you know, I was there three thousand years ago, but it like, I like the tactical system of you know, you pause a playing all your moves from all your different characters and get everything to sync up well, like it's it's I don't know, I enjoy that. I think it's a good experience all around and esthetically as far, even like aesthetically, Yeah, the graphics are dated, but I mean, even that can be
updated if you really want to. But I don't think it needs to. I think it's easy enough to get immersed whether or not you go that route. But what are you gonna say, David.
Oh, his mention of Dantuene, I liked. I liked having an image of what Dantuine was like, you know, because Princess Leah mentions dant Wine as a lie about where the rebel bass is in the original movie, and so having this image of this kind of a plane's sort of a pastoral planet, I thought was pretty interesting. I was glad to have a little more depth added to just that throwaway place name from in earlier fiction.
I was going to say, totally shifting gears here, if that's all right. But you talk about dark side paths and different things. I can see where you you might find a justification for killing Juhani or even you know, Bastilah in a sense, even on the light side path the best option. But where I really would draw my line here is dark side players helping Zurka Corporation. They're
they're they're just they're just the worst. Honestly, like they're they're like, uh, like the bureaucrat and you know Alistair mcintires after virtue or like they're you know, there's probably parallels there with that hideous strength somewhere too, but they're just they're all about the profit, like with no considerations for the ramifications moralier on the effects of others as well.
And I think I think, like you know, amidst dark words such as Darth Malik or you know, like nihilists, Scion even Krea or or Darth Treya and uh the second game as a villain and in doing things that are just morally evil all throughout the series, I think Zirca Corporation can really fly under the radar a bit there because they are I mean, there are a lot of just like the big companies that we we see today right where it's just like how do you maximize
the bottom line without consideration of the overall well being of the common man in the lower class, right, It's like Zerka Corporation is they are the Star Wars version of that, at least in Kotor, and uh so, yeah, I can never help them, even if I even if I was going to play a dark side play through for experimentation. I'd be like that one of the hardest things for me to draw my line on, because I
just you know, they're the worst. They're they're always trying to they're always trying to do unethical things for their own uh, for their own advances and profits.
So just a thought, Well, Josh, I didn't know you were an anti capitalist.
I mean, maybe what is capitalism?
So that's gonna take us.
Different explore different forms of capitalism here and compared to desserca corporation and you know the ethics of that. I'm all for capitalism. I'm I'm not for bureaucracy running America. I guess, let's put it that way.
Okay, So so now we're cleaning up the deep state. Okay, I can't piny down. We're all over the place here. Uh, we'll save that for your next substack.
All right, Well, there's probably two people that read that, so I don't know how much that matters.
Well, I'll link it. Everyone will read it. It'll be good.
Here's a blog for my substack, I guess shameless plug.
Yes, Josh's substack. All right, anything else? Right?
Yeah, So so next time we will get into kotor two deal with you know, all these stuff about you know, nihilism, and you know we do we want to destroy the Force or whatever. So we'll get there next time. But before we go, yeah, let's go ahead and plug anything you had to plug and so go go read Josh and Substack. I'll link that in the notes. Ian, go ahead and plug your show again.
Yeah.
I have a podcast called Reader to standing By, and that's about the X Wing novels and comics that are based on the video games. We don't actually talk about the video games much because I'm much more of a reader person. But if you like Star Wars, we talk a lot about the ethics because that's a big part of the X Wing series, and even about the Force sometimes because a couple of those pilots are Jedi.
Perfect.
So yeah, I go listen to Ian show, and David, I know you've got a platform that puts us all to shame, so you can go ahead and say something about what you have going on.
I don't have a I'm just a husband and father and enjoyer of things, and when people are talking about video games, I want to be there. So that's all I've really got going on right now.
This is very humble.
All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us. Look forward to speaking with you next time about kotor Tu. But until then, may the force be with you. All right, thank you for listening or thank you for watching, and I hope that you enjoyed that conversation. I know that I did, and I really look forward to this new avenue that we're engaging with and dealing with philosophical engagement with video games. And so again, go and check out
our other show, the Mythic Mind Games Podcast. I think that it's going to be and it's an exciting new venture. And like I said, eventually down the road, especially if this goes well, if this receives your support, this seems to be something people are interested in, then hopefully sooner rather than later, you know, we'll start developing the literature.
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And if you want to be a part of this, right you want to lead a show, you want to be part of a show, you want to just support what we're doing, then I welcome your patronage over at patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind. The more support that I receive, the more time that I can spend in just bringing us into these new directions and taking the directions we're already going and taking them further and increasing
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God's been.
I have always, at least ever since I can remember, had a kind of longing for death. It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up in the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine, where you couldn't see Gloam or the palace. Do you remember the color and the smell and looking across at the gray mountain in the distance, and because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing somewhere else there must
be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come, but I couldn't come, and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home. And now I will make answer to you, oh my judges, and show that he who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to receive the
greatest good in the other world. For I deem that the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men. They do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying. And if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he regret the arrival of that which he has
always been pursuing and desiring. The longing of Plato and the control of the Stoics pervades Louis's retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth until we have Faces with This incredible novel, which he believed to be his best, demonstrates the tensions in ancient thought, and even more significantly, the limits of rational philosophy, which can only go as deep as the foxes can dig. Beyond that, under that and providing the life of that thought, we find the dark
and holy places that blind our faculties of reason. What then, shall we do? This is a topic that we will explore after first surveying some important philosophical contributions in the ancient world that have had some significant bearing on Lewis's great novel. To this end, we will begin with Plato's Phato, which discusses the immortality of the soul and what those who love wisdom might expect in the life to come. And then we'll spend four weeks with some of the
great stoics, including Epictetus, Emperor, Marcus, Aurelius, and Seneca. Finally, we will turn our attention to till we have Faces for the final two weeks with original content, and so this will not be the same as what you may have seen in the fiction and philosophy of CS.
Lewis. Course.
Each week of this eight week study will include readings from primary sources that will be provided as PDFs, although these are all texts that belong in your personal library.
You'll be provided with recommendations for secondary readings. You'll have recorded presentations for you to watch at your leisure, ongoing discord chats, and weekly live meetings to discuss the readings enrolled today by going to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and checking out the job or you can gain access to all courses, past, present and future this year by purchasing a Tier three annual subscription.
I hope to see you there.