Chaos & Order
There's one more important story I want to share with you before leaving the topic of video games for a while. As mentioned in my previous post (Why Ghosts are a Thing), I think life's most valuable truths are nested in the shadows of the puppets of our entertainment. Today I'd love to share what I think is one of the most important observations I've come across in video games: The nature and relationship of chaos and order.
Many games deal with chaos and order, good and evil. But I think the story told in Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor & Middle Earth: Shadow of War is second to none. This story has made me realize something that no other story has. And for that, I think it's very important to preserve it and talk about it. The famous story told in the Lord of the Rings was already masterful, but these games did what decades of traditional school system could not: Interest me in the nature of capitalism vs. socialism. Can't see how I got there? Let me explain (in the next couple of articles). I'll summarize the story of both games in the following paragraphs, so be warned of spoilers ahead. Also (like the previous story) some details are most certainly not appropriate for children. Once again, reader discretion is advised.
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor introduces us to the protagonist of the Game: Talion. Talion is a Captain Ranger of Gondor at the Black Gate. After the first fall of Sauron (the Dark Lord, i.e. the bad guy who embodies all things evil), the Black Gate became a garrison for the Rangers. This game begins by showing us how Talion was preparing his son to become a ranger. We also see memories of Talion spending loving days with his wife... until the Uruks (a special breed of savage, strong, merciless orcs) come back to attack Middle Earth once again.
During the attack, Talion tries his best to have him and his family escape. But alas, he is unable to prevent their deaths. At the hands of Sauron's highest-ranking minions, Talion is forced to see his family die in front of his eyes before suffering the same fate, their throats being cut. Gruesome, cruel, and raw, right? Exactly! And that's precisely why Talion became a ghost, a spirit of vengeance. As we saw in the previous article, ghosts seem to come into being when a very gnarly deed takes place unpunished. And Talion's story is anything but tragic.
When Talion found himself unable to die, he awoke at the top of a celestial tower with what appeared to be an elf by his side...
Talion: What is this place?
Elf: See for yourself
Talion: What has happened to me?
Elf: You are banished from death. Cast adrift between the worlds of light and dark. A curse binds us together within the walls of Arda
Talion: If what you say is true, then how do we break this curse?
Elf: We find the one who cast it on us: The Black Hand of Sauron
Note: The Black Hand of Sauron is Sauron's highest-ranking lackey (the elf doesn't speak literally here, of course).
At the beginning of the game, the elf doesn't recall almost anything about his past. He only knows where he is and who cast his curse upon him. During the events of the game, we (the player) learn that this elf is Celebrimbor, the master smith who crafted the One Ring (the ring that Sauron uses to gain utmost power).
Celebrimbor didn't initially intend to craft the ring. He was tricked by Sauron into doing so. Once the ring was crafted (as per the specifications of Sauron), he enslaved Celebrimbor and his family. At first, Celebrimbor fought bravely with the help of the ring. The tide of the battle was in his favor. Yet as Celebrimbor was about to deal his final blow, the ring slipped from his finger into Sauron's, betraying his creator. Once Sauron obtained the ring, there was nothing else to be done.
Although this is not explicitly shown in the game, we can be most certain that Celebrimbor also saw his family die in front of him. Once chained up, Sauron killed Celebrimbor with the very same Mithril hammer he used to craft the ring. It is this same horrible way of dying (watching your family die first while you are unable to do anything about it) that ties Talion and Celebrimbor. The justification for the existence of both characters is that Talion's body is a physical vessel where Celebrimbor can manifest himself.
The main objective of this first game is to reach and slay the Black Hand of Sauron. To do that, the player learns that Celebrimbor has the ability to get into the minds of Uruks (upon touching their head once they are weak enough). This is leveraged as a tool to gain intel on where to go next and what Uruk captain to slay next. There are many more details present in the game, but it's important to note that Celebrimbor learns to not only read the minds of Uruks but to control them as well. In this way, Talion and Celebrimbor end up forming a small army of their own that allows them to confront and defeat the Black Hand of Sauron.
Celebrimbor: The Black Hand of Sauron is dead. The Hither Shore is calling us. This is no longer our battle. I tired fighting him. It can't be done.
Talion: Could you really rest for all of eternity, knowing that you had the chance to stop him but did nothing?
Celebrimbor fades away as Talion manifests back into the physical world, atop the Black Gate while looking towards Mount Doom as he says:
The time has come for a new Ring
The second game (Middle Earth: Shadow of War) begins. And indeed, Talion and Celebrimbor get into Mount Doom to craft the New Ring. Once again, the gameplay (although better and more refined) consists of slaying and gaining control of powerful Uruks as you make your way up Sauron's army hierarchy. Something to note is that this game puts a focus on titling Celebrimbor as The Bright Lord (in contrast to The Dark Lord, Sauron). Furthermore, Celebrimbor always glows in blue flames while Sauron is always shown engulfed in red flames. Of course, Celebrimbor represents order while Sauron represents chaos. But now that Celebrimbor can control Uruks (same as Sauron) and has a new ring to power him, only his motivation distinguishes him from Sauron.
Long story short, once Talion's army is sufficiently big, they launch a full attack on Sauron's headquarters (Barad-dûr). Talion even fights and defeats the legendary Nazgul (aka ringwraiths), the spirits of enslaved king men of old (now bent to Sauron's will through their own control rings).
Towards the end of the game, during the last attack, Talion defeats Isildur (a member of the Nazgul in the game's narrative). As Celebrimbor touches Isildur's head, Isildur's ring falls off his finger. Celebrimbor wanted to control Isildur (and by proxy, the Nazgul) to help in his battle against Sauron. But knowing that Isildur is essentially just like him (a mortal man entangled in the power struggles of elves while being denied proper rest), Talion frees Isildur by banishing him with his sword. The following conversation occurs:
Note: Eltariel is an Elven assassin (the last Blade of Galadriel) present there for reasons of the plot of the game. She helped Celebrimbor and Talion in their fight against Sauron.
Talion: I cannot allow this. Isildur, I release you.
Celebrimbor: Talion no!
Talion: Find peace in death.
Celebrimbor: He was not your to release!
Talion: And he was not yours to enslave.
Eltariel: He did more than that. You broke Sauron's hold. You dominated him.
Celebrimbor: And I will dominate Sauron. His armies will be mine.
Talion: We are meant to destroy Sauron.
Celebrimbor: Sauron cannot be destroyed.
Eltariel: Celebrimbor is right. We fight and fight but evil always returns. Talion, we can end this here.
Celebrimbor: We must ensure Mordor is restored to light, not darkness.
Talion: I will not trade one Dark Lord for another. This is not the end I have fought for!
Eltariel: But you are not the only one fighting.
Celebrimbor: (to Eltariel) No. He is not. (to Talion) This is not about your petty vengeance. Or mine. This is about restoring order to Mordor. To all of Middle-earth. The end you fought for? You are but a vessel. And there are others. (to Eltariel) The Lady Galadriel sent you here for a reason. Together we can bring Sauron to his knees, we can finish what our people started so long ago.
Celebrimbor extends his hand to Eltariel, offering her the New Ring. She hesitates at first, but eventually takes it and wears it. Once she does this, Talion's throat begins to bleed. Unable to breathe and dying, Talion falls to the ground.
Eltariel: Our sacrifices are not in vain. This is the only way.
As Talion draws his last few breaths, he looks to the side only to find Isildur's ring. With great effort, he reaches for it and wears it, saving his "life" in the process albeit at a high price. Having done this, Talion would eventually become a Nazgul, bound to serve the Dark Lord. In the game, Talion continues to fight for the good of Middle Earth but eventually grows tired of fighting. It is then that he truly becomes part of the Nazgul... until Frodo and Sam destroy the ring. This is the game's true and best ending.
However, Celebrimbor went to fight Sauron using Eltariel as a vessel. Did he succeed? One may think he failed again given the story only truly ends with the destruction of the ring. But no. Celebrimbor and Eltariel did defeat Sauron, even if briefly. Alas, as Celebrimbor was holding Sauron's head to subdue him, Sauron grabbed his arm and sliced away 3 of Eltariel's fingers using a dagger he had behind his back. The New Ring was severed from Eltariel's body. Sauron then grabbed Celebrimbor (the spirit) and pulled it towards his body, absorbing him. In the words of the game's narrator:
Sauron and Celebrimbor became one. Locked in a prison of perpetual war – a Flaming Eye casting its shadow over Mordor
Is that cool or what?!? But why is that cool? I argue it's cool because it's true! When you take order too far, you end up becoming a tyrant yourself. And it is often that we look towards order to eradicate chaos. Chaos is a pluripotential state of being, but it is painful to inhabit it. Being the antonym of chaos, order seems like a better place to be, right? Well, this story (and history too) is telling us: "Think again. Don't be so sure of that. Maybe there'll be light instead of darkness but you'll be a slave nonetheless. Do you really think it's good enough to trade one Lord for another?". This is the gist of what I wanted to share with you today. But that's not all. When I look at these stories I can't help but think of the ideas covered in this video:
The argument here is that Hitler was so orderly because he had a very strong sense of disgust. This disgust helped take the step beyond cleaning factories into "cleaning society" from what he considered parasites. Quoting some highlights from the video:
You think about a totalitarian state, you think about the Nazis and their goose-stepping... what's happening is that every single person in the military becomes an identical unit, they're all uniform. They're all in some sense imitating the dictator in an absolutely perfect way. The dictator wants to impose strict uniformity on the entire population: that's order.
And one of the things we've discovered is that disgust sensitivity is associated with orderliness and conscientiousness. One of the things about Hitler was that he was very disgust sensitive. A lot of his hatred for non-aryans was a manifestation of disgust not of fear, it's a whole different thing.
There's some recent work that was published in PLoS ONE about three years ago showing that if you went around and sampled political attitudes in different countries (or even within the same country) what you found was that the higher the prevalence of infectious diseases, the higher the probability of totalitarian political attitudes at the local level.
Before Hitler went on his rampage against the non-aryans he cleaned up all the factories, he fumigated them. He used cyclone B, the same gas he used in the gas chambers eventually. First it was the bugs and the rats, then it was euthanasia... and the the rationale for that was compassion by the way, just so you all know: It's merciful to put these people who are burdensome to themselves and their families and the state who are living (second-rate lives)... its merciful to euthanize them.
People are often accused, if they're conservative, of being fearful and that's why they suppress other people's viewpoints. But that doesn't look right, it's low openness and high orderliness. And that looks like it's associated with disgust. And that looks like it's associated with something called the extended immune system, which is the proclivity of people to to keep themselves away from potential sources of contamination.
It's really terrifying because one of the things people often said about Germany was that it was a very civilized country. And yet it descended into barbarity. But conscientiousness is a very good predictor of long-term success and so you could say, "well conscientious societies are more civilized". But they're also more orderly and that makes them more disgust sensitive. What it might easily have been in Germany was that it was an excess of civilization rather than its lack that produced exactly these consequences. That's a far more frightening proposition and one that's I believe much more likely to be true.
Hitler bathed four times a day. And he was also an admirer of willpower. He could stand like this for eight hours in the back of a car. And the thing about conscientious people is they're very willpower oriented. If you're unfortunate enough to be sick (chronically) in the house of someone who's conscientious (especially if it's a mental illness), you're more likely to relapse. Because the conscientious person is going to be judgmental and they're gonna say to you (if you're schizophrenic): "well if you just organize yourself and get up in the morning and try a little harder, you could overcome". Which is of course, true. Except you can't, because you're schizophrenic. Orderly people are very judgmental.
I want to finish this article with a series of intriguing ideas on the subject:
Celebrimbor and Sauron are more so ideas than characters. I now believe that it's not people who have ideas, but ideas that have people. The orcs, the Uruks are like you and me. When Celebrimbor grabs their head and starts controlling them, it's very similar to what might happen to us in real life. When a seductive enough idea gets a hold of me, it's hard (if not impossible) to free myself from it. And it is the case that when you see that your idea has failed you, you leave it (or betray it). This may happen in the second game, by the way. Some orcs sometimes betray Talion, leaving him for the Dark Lord.
When I say Celebrimbor and Sauron are more so ideas, this is exactly what I mean when I say that life's most valuable truths are nested in the shadows of the puppets of our entertainment: It's not Celebrimbor that matters, but order (as an idea), for order is behind Celebrimbor (like a shadow) at all times in the plot. That's what he represents.
It's interesting to see that Sauron tricks people into serving him. There's something pathetic about that. It's like having someone else do your homework for you while you take the credit. Nevertheless, I find it fascinating that the Dark Lord himself showcases psychopathic traits: he makes you think he is good at first only to stab you in the back later. That seems to be a necessary precondition to being truly evil, even if it's not all that's necessary. It makes me think quite a lot about the following video and makes me wonder what other things Sauron may teach us about power-hungry individuals:
Why can't no one accept Middle-Earth ruled by no one? It's one thing that Celebrimbor doesn't want to just send everyone home once he defeats Sauron. But other characters that talk to Talion also insist that "Middle-Earth must have a ruler, otherwise it will fall". Fall into what, exactly? It's not that I think they are wrong, but I think it's interesting that we need something to live by. We can't just live by nothing. Maybe we shouldn't replace one lord for another. But (interestingly enough) we also can't have an empty throne.
If you fight something long enough, you eventually become that very same thing. This is what the fight of Talion signifies after he becomes a ringwraith. It is like what happens to Harvey Dent in the movie Batman: The Dark Knight. It's as if we only have a couple of swings at the piñata of life. After a while, you just grow tired of things and you stop fighting for what you think is right. What is the right approach to this aspect of life, I wonder?
That's it! I hope you liked today's story and reflections. These will be the grounds to elucidate further ideas and opinions for future articles. If you find my articles valuable and you'd like to support me, you can do so by...
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