/lit/ - Literature

>>12442055
but instead of a Bond villain lecturing Bond - or Bond himself making a cutting and cruel remark to a villain he has just executed - what you get instead are *two villains talking to each other.* this is less a story about being Beyond good and evil as it is about being *beneath* it: the Boss is not only insufficiently evil, he's also insufficiently good. he lacks the capacity for either the will to do evil, or the capacity to tell himself that what he is doing is good. he loses on both counts. everyone loses. everything is fucked. it all goes up in flames.

but it goes up in such a brilliant way. how does evil talk to evil? how do clones and fakes talk to other clones and fakes? none of them can make reality claims, or even relate to each other as if they could possibly understand where they are coming from. they don't even understand where they themselves are coming from, nor does the truth do anything except complicate things ever further. there is a tremendous pessimism that runs through all of these games, but it is mingled with moments of comedy and absurdity as well. mainly, it is Kojima's refraining from giving nakedly straightforward answers that contributes to the games being what they are. they get lost in their plots, no question, but it is at the same time a way of evading the subtlest traps of all, which are moral answers. there are no moral answers. there's only morality, inevitably, and no matter who you are, you are in the end going to be found guilty one way or the other. everybody loses.

such a good game.