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“Seriously, professor, if you would just try other games, I
promise you’ll find something that you could see as art.”
I can’t remember how many times I uttered these words to my
essay-writing teacher during my sophomore year of college. I tend to connect
lessons and ideas learned in the academic setting to video games I have played.
It’s how my brain works. If I can extract an idea from a video game, something
deeper down than the gameplay and graphics, I can usually find some way it
could be dissected in an academic setting.
But time and time again, my teacher would implore me
to stop bringing the subject up, as no video game could possibly approach the
artistic quality of novels or essays we had read.
So I, being the stubborn Irish boy from New York, decided to
prove her wrong, once and for all. Maybe I was just angry. But deep down, I
just wanted another excuse to write about games. So that’s what I did.
One day in class, we were dissecting and mimicking a group
of essays that can be defined as “braid” essays. The essential point of a braid
essay is to weave three or more points of view or storylines into one seamless
narrative. In other words, take several completely separate ideas and merge
them. Through the confluence of individual thoughts, a complete story
Naturally I, being the nerd I am, immediately thought of
Jonathan Blow’s Braid as soon as I read the word braid. Little did I know that
I had just stumbled on what I believe to be the namesake of the game. The video
game Braid is itself, a braid story.
Professor Nichols tasked us with writing our own braid
essay, so I completed that with ease, drawing ideas from one of my favorite
games I’ve ever experienced. Then, she hit us with yet another assignment: find
an example of a braid story in modern media.
She had no idea what she had just gotten herself into. The
list of media included film, novels, essays, television, and even blogs. Video
games were nowhere to be seen. This was my golden ticket for a tour of the
Below is the exact essay I wrote, aside from the images, which I added here. Different gamers will have different views of Braid’s
meaning, but that is one of the reasons that it’s such an incredible creation
to begin with. Please forgive the length of this post, but I didn't want to edit the essay further than I already had.
The video game Braid released for the Xbox Live Arcade in 2008, to a largely unsuspecting audience. At first glance, the title seemed to showcase intuitive gameplay based around the mechanics of time. Concepts such as forgiveness, regret, and mystery, and how they are changed by time, are portrayed incredibly as the protagonist Tim embarks on his search.
Enough about the gameplay, and forget about the gorgeous art that
adorns the backdrop of each individual realm Tim traverses. Ignore the
spine-tingling music that reaches its apexes at all the right moments. As a
story, Braid lives up to its name.
Through the use of three different points of view, the
game’s creator, Jonathan Blow, has crafted a tale that can’t be boiled down to
one universal meaning. While there are several prominent elements that many the
world over have recognized, the game’s interwoven messages take on new meaning
with every viewing agent.
Between worlds filled with mind-bending puzzles revolving
around the concept of time, there lie dozens of books containing a non-linear
story that, at first, makes little sense in the context of the game. The
essential idea is that Tim has embarked on a quest to find “the princess.”
Mistakes were made, and now he is off to right his wrongs, and rescue her from
the horrible monster that has snatched her.
The one thing that Tim remembers of her departure is her
braid, lashing across his face as she leaves him, eager to escape after the
myriad mistakes he made. Tim wishes he could just say “I’m sorry,” and it would
all be forgiven. She would forget, and they would move on as if nothing has
happened. But that isn’t how relationships work between two who truly care
about each other. Beneath the façade of comfort lie uneasiness and distrust.
As the story progresses, it is clear that Tim is incredibly
protective of the mysterious princess, before she departed at least. However,
the truth of the matter unfolds before the player’s eyes: it was Tim’s
over-protectiveness that drove away the princess in the first place. A man’s
eagerness to secure what he thinks to be the perfect relationship becomes the
single thing that destroys it. A true Catch-22.
An even grimmer fact emerges, as gamers realize that the
girl with whom Tim had originally been bound to, was not, in fact, the
princess. Or at least, she wasn’t providing the relationship that Tim wanted to
have. He needed something perfect; blind to the fact that such a dynamic
doesn’t exist. His tight hold on the idea of “the princess” is his single most
detrimental characteristic. It drove away his real princess, and now he was
striving to earn her forgiveness.
Before the player comes to the fourth world, which contains
the mysteries of time and place, they are given a peak into Tim’s thoughts as
he strolls through his old neighborhood. He realizes that his feelings are what
truly lead him to his princess, and that by following them he will find the
castle that has become her cage. Although he was still with his true love, his
feelings towards the perfect relationship meant he was as good as gone.
And yet, the simple text belies a second meaning: a man’s
quest for knowledge. Studying and researching, he strives to discover his
“princess.” Only this time, the princess is not as far out of reach as that of
a man yearning for a perfect relationship. No, this princess lies waiting in
the atoms of life itself. The destruction of entire nations, the end of all
wars, and the power of a thousand suns: the atomic bomb.
This man’s obsession with creating the bomb can be compared
to the former’s need for security. Although it is not completely out of the
question, the end result has the potential to be catastrophic. The bomb erupts,
just as the other man’s lover does. There is no turning back. The world knows
the bomb is possible, and the woman will never forget the first man’s mistake.
that moment hung eternity. Time stood still. Space contracted to a pinpoint. It
was as though the earth had opened and the skies split. One felt as though he
had been privileged to witness the Birth of the World…”
quote, taken from Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American
depicts the first atomic implosion in the desert of New Mexico. Coincidentally,
it can also symbolize the breaking point of a relationship between a man and a
woman. After so long, so many days spent together, how can anything compare to
it? And all of this fallout, literal and metaphoric, is a result of man’s
third story: a child, eager to reach the candy on the other side of a
storefront window. Really? After two complicated, adult-oriented, universal
problems have been depicted in the first two strands of the braid?
what makes Braid genius. The fact that Jonathan Blow has compared the needs of
an adult man and the creation of a weapon of mass destruction to the desire of
a small child is what ties this braid story together. The prize lies just on
the other side of a pane of glass, so close yet so far.
child’s mother is bearing the brunt of his immature tendencies. He pulls on her
braided hair and yanks on her arm. He hurts her, yet she continues to walk past
the same store window every day. Why does she do this? She does this because
she thinks that he is too young to know better. When you’re older, you can have
the candy, the “ethical calculus’ and the “magnetic monopole.” She thinks that
it is in a child’s nature to want. Much like it’s in a man’s nature to desire a
relationship that suits him. And lastly, it is in man’s nature to push the
bounds of his knowledge further and further, regardless of the potential
three strands share something in common: the disastrous conclusions are all the
result of the agent’s desires. The candy, knowledge, and perfection bring about
destruction, and nothing more.
evidence? As the gameplay draws to an end, Tim chases after the princess,
trailing beneath her after she has escaped the clutches of a dangerous knight.
She aids Tim. She lowers bridges for him to cross pits of burning lava; she
drops ladders so he can climb over obstacles. Finally, at long last, he reaches
her. And once again, the concept of time is utilized, and the gameplay
the truth escapes. Tim is chasing the princess again, yet she is not helping
him closer to her. She raises the ladders aiding him; she raises bridges that
helped him on the way here. And she finds comfort in the arms of that knight,
who now appears valiant instead of malignant.
strands, three separate characters, and one unique story. One braid that
unifies individual ideas. A true Braid story, in every sense of the word.
forward one year, and I received an email from my former essay-writing
instructor. I hadn’t seen or talked to her since I participated in her class,
so the message was a bit of a surprise to me. Basically, she was asking how my
college career was faring, how I liked the school nowadays, and how my editor
position with the paper was treating me.
there, at the bottom of the page, was an attachment. It was titled “Braid
assignment.” Next to it, she had written, “check this out.”
it, I remembered the assignment, and the content of my essay all came rushing
back to me. Why the rubric, though?
there, under “acceptable media for assignment content,” were the words: video