7 - Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda (feat. Anthony Cirilla)

I am joined by Joshua Traylor to speak with Anthony Cirilla, a medievalist and co-editor of Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda

Watch the video for this episode here: https://youtu.be/vU3OBUUitis

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, where we discuss
video games through the lens of the Christian humanities. I'm
doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. Hey, there,
and welcome back as we get ready for the second
part of our two part mini series on the Legend

(00:25):
of Zelda. Last time we had a general conversation with Josh,
with David, and of course with me on on on Zelda.
The philosophy involved the artistic value, the mythology, and just
kind of generally why why we think that this is
a franchise that has had such staying power, why it

(00:47):
has had such an impact on the culture more more
broadly than video games tend to that. You know, there's
there's definite some weight there that it resonates with human
experience and human longing for a reason. And today we'll
be getting more more into that with some different angles
with a special guest. Today we're going to be joined
by doctor Anthony Sorilla. Doctor Anthony Serrilla is Associate Professor

(01:09):
of English at College of the Ozarks. He's a lecturer
at the Damada Institute, an Anglican priest in the United
Episcopal Church, in North America and rector at his local parish,
and he's also associate editor of Carmina Philosophia, the journal
of the International Boethia Society. He also co edited a
book called Mythopoeic Narrative in the Legend of Zelda series
in twenty twenty, to which he contributed an essay on

(01:31):
Tolkien's Mythopoia in the Hero's Journey with reference to the
Virtues of the Triforce in Ocarina of Time. This year,
he has an upcoming essay anthology that he's editing on
theology in Avatar Glass Airbender, and he's currently writing a
book on Boethius in the Constellation of a Quiet Life
coming up in twenty twenty six. So definitely an interesting fellow.

(01:52):
He's interested in a lot of the same kinds of
things that we tend to talk about in the show,
a lot of personal interests of mine. In addition to
the Zelda video game store by telling Artistry connection, we
also we definitely have Boetheis in common. And I love Boethius.
I read the Constellation of Philosophy on a fairly annual basis.
I love teaching the Consolation and so I'll have to

(02:14):
have Anthony on on the main show sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Just talk Boethius. But for now we are here to
talk about Zelda in with the PM. And then also,
of course we have josh Trailer. And you know, as
I mentioned in the last episode, my experience at Zelda,
it's not as great as it is with josh is,
and so I figured it'd be good for him to
take the lead on asking the questions and facilitating the conversation.
So josh will be leading us again. And you know,
I realized that I haven't formally introduced josh on this podcast,

(02:39):
so I should probably do that. So Joshua Trailer is
an incoming upper school literature teacher at Ivywood Classical Academy.
He is a graduate student in the Great Books program
at Memorial College and he's currently teaching a course for
us for Mythic Mind on Paradise Lost. And by the way,
even though that course is well into it now, it's
not too late to enroll. It's really inexpensive. It's fifty

(02:59):
bucks twenty five dollars if you are a patron of
Mythic Mind. And even though the course is already well
into it, maybe the course is already finished by the
time that you are listening to this. Once you enroll,
you get all the materials indefinitely, and so there's not
really a timetable on that, and that you get all
these great resources. So josh can really serve as a
good guide for him in going through Paradise Lost now

(03:20):
he is also Josh is also currently working on a
chapter on the concept of the Aristotelian tragic hero to
be featured in the fourth Pop Culture and Philosophy volume,
Dark Souls and Philosophy, And so get some interesting combinations
of overlapping interests represented between the three of us. I
think that this led to a very productive, very worthwhile

(03:41):
conversation on the mythopoic nature of the legend of Zelda.
And so now let's go ahead and get to it.
Welcome Josh and doctor Sorella to talk about Zelda and
its mythethic value. Yeah. I mentioned in the last episode
that we did with Joshua's David that my experience with

(04:02):
Zelda really ends with the in sixty four, So I've
been out of the loop since Acarina in Majoriti's mass
But those games, especially Akarina or really they're forwadive experiences
for our generation. It still stands out to me. My
cat comes when I wistle opone this song, Like these
are the things that stand out to you. And you know,

(04:24):
I'm convinced that, even though I haven't really been in
the loop for a while, it's something like Zelda, like
this kind of franchise that has such a hold on
the culture to the point where even people who aren't
gamers know what Zelda is at least recognize it. And
to me, that alone means there's something significant there that
speaks to human reality. Otherwise it wouldn't have that grip
that it does. And so I look forward to digging

(04:45):
into that conversation. But because I just don't have the
expertise on this subject, I'm gonna let Josh really take
the range of this interview here. I know he has
some questions to ask and I'll just jump in wherever
I'm able. So Josh, want to take away with with
whatever you have for them?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, absolutely, thanks for joining us, Anthony. So first off,
I just want to do throw a plug out here.
But this book, this mythopic narrative in the legends of Zelda,
this is what we are referencing in the last podcast,
Anthony is you're one of the editors in this right,
one of.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Two yes mencon is the other YEP.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
So you can buy it on Amazon. You can probably
buy it elsewhere, I would assume. But I've read through
some of the essays and your introduction, which I thought
was fantastic. I really like a lot of the points
that you made there. There's one quote I'm taking here,
and it says on page seven you say that if
we pit intellectualism against video games, video games will win.

(05:49):
And in a broader context, my understanding is that you're
basically making this claim that we should, as academics in
the humanities, be finding a way to connect with sort
of like the video game pop culture and kind of
bridge the gap between the academy and lovers of video games.

(06:10):
And I think you have a lot of you know,
video essays on YouTube, and some of them are really good,
like even if they don't have any sort of academic pedigree,
it's just a hobby. Some of them are very good.
But even being able to bridge the gap between maybe
them and academics who have just some of the education
in the chops to talk about philosophical and literary concepts

(06:32):
and kind of probe deeper into those. I think there's
just a I think there really is a market for
that out there, and I think not just a market,
but just a good to our society in general. And
I'll speak for myself, and I think Andrew will not
as had to be agrees, but like I think mythic mind,
we're for sure very much about that very kind of thing.

(06:52):
So I wanted to bring that up and also just
compliment that that's it's a lovely introduction. I really enjoyed that.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
Thank you, and also thank you so much Josh for
facilitating this, and Andrew for having me on.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
This is great fun.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
I'm always up for talking about Zelda, so I'm really
excited to dig into this.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah. Absolutely so. On our podcast episode was two days ago, Andrew,
David and I talked about various things about Zelda, and
we talked about our experience with the game. We usually
like to kind of talk about experiences with the subject matter,
So would you please just tell us a little bit

(07:31):
about your personal experience with the Zelada game over the
course of your life or however long you've been playing that.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
So Andrew led I think with the Kreme de la creme,
I mean bowing out at Ochern of Time. Majora's mask
is nothing to be ashamed of. That was also essentially
my entry point into Zelda. When I when I was reading, well,
when I was playing Zelda, I had already been reading Tolkien.

(08:00):
I think I was around eleven when Ockering of Time
came out. It was around that time that I was
discovering Tolkien and then shortly after Zelda, and so my
experience of playing Zelda was essentially, oh, this is sort
of a digital way, a virtual way to experience what
Tolkien is all about. So the story is pretty much

(08:21):
I was at this Super Bowl party with my family
and I was pretty bored. I wasn't really interested in
the game. I enjoyed football more now, but at the
time I didn't really and my stepuncle actually noticed and
he said, well, you know, I've got these games, and
he shared the first Selda and a Link to the Past.

(08:42):
He didn't share Zelda two with me, and then he
shared a oker End of Time. An operat of Time
just immediately grabbed me as this incredible adventure and I think,
like the Hobbit, it has this model of giving you
a place of home. You have the shire, you have
this sense of belonging in this fantasy realm, and then

(09:05):
it pushes you out of that the kind of there
and back again feeling of it. You know, so pretty
much right away, Zelda seemed to me like it was
almost allowing me to play through the experience of the
kind of fantasy that I love so much in Tolkien.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Sorry cut up for a second. No, thank you so
much for the answers, though, I appreciate that. Yeah, I
think this seems like okrant Time is like, rightfully so
a fan favorite. So I'm yeah, yeah, I was. I
was three when that game came out, But nevertheless, it's
somehow gripped me, if not like when I was like
maybe like five or six rather than three. But there's

(09:47):
a lot of reasons for that.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Well, look at how much it's been re released. I mean,
it has staying power. You can get it on virtually
every console that Nintendo has, and that tells you something
that Nintendo thinks, you know, we we better keep this
this one alive, you know.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Sure, Yeah, I think it's like we could like sit
here in name off like some of the great books
of Western literature, right it's like the Odyssey, the Aenia Bao, Wulf,
Lord of the Rings, Hamlet, just the list goes on
on on. I think if we're gonna do that with
like video like literary works in video games, I would
hope Akarina Time would be considered to be critically acclaimed.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, in that, I would hope.

Speaker 6 (10:27):
So.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
See, I was kind of hoping that you're going to
go right from great Books and then just mixing Akarina,
you know, right in there.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:35):
No, for sure, we have them Adler who had the
Great Books class and sort of we could add you know,
the canon, add some video games in there.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, a lot to be explored, that's for sure. So
another thing we're definitely doing here is going back to
the title of your book, going back to Tolkien. We
definitely go back to Tolkien a lot. A mythic mind,
We go back to C. S. Lewis a lot. Probably
those two more than anybody else, I would say. And

(11:06):
so this term mythopia is on the mind here. It's
it's in your title. We talked about it in other places.
So for our listeners who aren't experienced with such like
a concept or a topic, or don't know what that
word means. Would you just explain what that means? Or

(11:29):
like if somebody asked you what does that mean and
they'd never heard it before, Like, how would you answer that?

Speaker 5 (11:35):
It's difficult to capture in few words because it's a
rich concept I mean etymologically, of course, you well know
it means myth making. In a creative writing class, we
might translate it, roughly speaking as world building. But I
think it's richer than that. I think Mythopoia is about

(11:58):
how our human capacity to make myths is actually part
of how we explain the world. You know Tolkien's poem Mythopoleia,
which I don't have my copy of Tree and Leaf
with me, you know, of course, you know he wrote
to C. S. Lewis as really an argument of epistemology

(12:21):
that when we are deeply telling stories about elves, and
I don't mean what I mean there is not simply
just because we like elves, but because there's a deep
sense that elves are the right way to tell this story,
or dragons are the right way to tell that story.
When you pull on those resources of imagination, you are

(12:44):
helping the mind to better encounter reality. And I really
think that's fundamentally what he's using that term to mean.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Right, he talks about some created reality. Is that good
fiction at least is not it's not made up, it's
dealing with reality, but on a different plane. Yeah, And
Lewis says something I think is helpful here regarding the
idea of myth and myth became fact his essay. He
says that myth is the isthmus that connects the peninsular

(13:15):
world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to.
It is not like truth abstract, nor is it like
direct experience bound to the particular. So he says, you know,
myth is that meeting place between abstracts ideas and the
concrete world we actually experience. And and so mythopoeia is
that that is that act of putting that out there

(13:38):
as a world for you as the creative experience, as
well as for the other participants.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
And what Lewis is saying there, and I'm sure he
is doing this intentionally, is drawing on Aristotle, right, who
says of stories in general that poetry and he means
poetry in a larger sense of dramas storytelling as well
as verse right is the middle place between history and philosophy, right,

(14:07):
And that actually Poach is more philosophical, he says, than history.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Right.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Nothing against history, of course, but you know, to kind
of understand with that idea in a sense, why do
we need stories? Well, because we need to mediate between
our reason and our senses. The imagination does that. And
I think because this is an analogy maybe a little
ham fisted that I do with my students. If you

(14:34):
think of a gym, there are lots of and if
you saw, I'm glad the camera is cutting off part
of my body for this. This is a good thing
for this analogy. But you know, in the gym there's
all these different machines and exercise equipment that zero in
on particular muscle groups. And think, in general, literature exercises
our imagination so we can reason more deeply about our experience.

(14:58):
But I think fantasy in particular helps us to reason
about the function of imagination. It's sort of self reflexive
about the imagination's ability to interpret. You know, if you
read Pride and Prejudice, there's imagination there, but you can
kind of forget that as you're just enjoying the characters, right,
it's harder to forget when you're reading one of the

(15:19):
Rings or playing Zelda. You know, it's sort of outward facing.
Your imagination matters, and I think that's why we're drawn
to these things, you know.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, absolutely, there's a great answer. And I like that
gym in training analogy because it's like, you know, teaching
at a classical school, like liberal arts focused. I think
this is one of the ways we're very fundamentally different
than a lot of public schools who are obviously downstream
from just like progressive education philosophies of the twentieth century.

(15:52):
But great, Yeah, one thing they sometimes do really well
is teach people to work well with like arithmetic and
aspects of natural science. But one thing they hardly ever
do well is to train the imagination. I think that's
one of the things we do extremely well. And not
that we are anti stem in humanity's focused, but that
we are. We're all about you know, learn orn poetry,

(16:16):
read great novels, read great works of philosophy, learn the
broad sweep of history, because it's just as important as
learning chemistry, biology, geometry, physics, calculus, you name it, right,
Like we see them all as extremely valuable and making
the well rounded liberal man like the Verria liberatis and

(16:39):
the Latin like. That's so, I think there's there's an
important point here, and this is also why I want
to have these kind of discussions, because sometimes literature and
specifically poetry just does not get the light that deserves
in our culture.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
It makes what you're saying makes me think of the
Jesuit phrase the cure personalities, you know, the care of
the whole person. And I think that the dangers of scientism,
which is not a friend of science, you know, is
that it forgets and this is Tolkien's point in Mythopoeia
that actually you couldn't get to these other arts without

(17:17):
the poetic experience. If you become a scientist or a mathematician,
it's because your imagination was awakened and captured to that.
And it's not good to have a kind of ingratitude
to the wonder that woke up that interest to begin with,
you know. And I think classical education grabs that and

(17:37):
sort of it sort of it keeps circulation moving between
all the systems of the mind, I think a little
more effectively than the what's become the traditional model, you know.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, I mean it strives to make sense of that
that Platonic question of like what is the good that
makes good things good? It answers the question, you know,
when the student is asking do I need to learn this? Well,
you can actually provide an answer because it's it's all
to my source in the good. It's it's why the
Medievals would say that theologies and other science and philosophy

(18:10):
is its handmade and that everything else ultimately comes from there,
from the question of wisdom, which itself has answered theologically,
and so everything, all all fashions of knowledge are actually connected,
as opposed to the very nominalists, like let's just engage
in all these different particular things with no unifying purpose.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
Yeah, that's that's absolutely right. Yeah, I forget who pointed
out the fact. It's interesting thing about the fact that
Plato and Aristotle come about four hundred years after Homer,
you know, and to kind of think about their philosophical
dispute as basically a debate on how to read the myths,
you know, and and so yeah, there's this kind of

(18:52):
this whole sense of seeking the good that even Plato,
as much as he critiques the myths is also deeply,
deeply engaged age with them, you know, and and so
in that sense, philosophy is born out of a desire
to understand the human story.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Essentially.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, now I feel like we could very generally get
to these philosophical ideas for for the rest of this conversation. So, Josh,
you want to you want to point this more directly
towards Elda.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
I certainly can, but no, thank you, Thank you so
much for bringing those up. This kind, I think this
kind of ties in and you may have even answered
some of this question in our in what we just
said in the past couple of minutes, which is totally fine.
But so I grew up really attracted to the legend
of Zelda. I grew up attracted to studio ghibli movies

(19:46):
like Princess Mononoke, things like that, like fantastical settings, both
in a Western sense like knights, swords and shields, but also,
and you know, the very limited things that I do
know about Japanese culture, I was attracted to things like
like samurai or warfare and feudal Japan and all of

(20:09):
these things. Right, So there's kind of a blend of
both of those elements in Celta. But you know, why
did I have such a difficult time explaining why I
liked these things growing up? Why, you know, music, musically,
aesthetically and just the world building I was. I was like, oh,
I just I just like the world, And people said, oh,

(20:31):
that's not substantial. Why would somebody like me have felt
that way?

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (20:36):
Well, I think our minds are an objective mystery to
ourselves to a great extent, you know, I mean, given
that you know the AMaGA day, certainly I wouldn't claim
to understand God in a complete way, because he's mysterious
and we, in some sense are are reflection of that.

(20:56):
And so I think the question of what captures are tension,
there's an aspect to that that we can't because it's
pulling on resources that go deeper than that, sort of
like the ego, sort of pinpoint of attention on something,
you know. And I think I would say that that's
also true of other basic experiences in life. We know

(21:19):
scientifically why we like water, but when you're thirsty and
it's satisfying, and you can't really explain the experience, just
it's just it's just good. After this run or why
do you like to go out into the sunlight. Well,
your skin absorbs vitamin D, but that doesn't explain the
full sense of after you kind of had a hard
day and you walk out into the light and something

(21:42):
is just being satisfied, and it takes time to figure
out exactly what's going on there. And I think the
same is true of these these fantastic images that and
this is kind of evocative of Lewis talking about like
the meeting of desire.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
You know, I.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Remember having from early early memories as a child, scenes
from The Last Unicorn, and I didn't know what it was.
I would describe other's a unicorn and a butterfly.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
And no one knew what I was talking about.

Speaker 5 (22:13):
But for some reason, those images just resonated with something
in me, and I wanted to know what I was remembering.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
You know.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
When I finally got to see the movie, I wasn't disappointed.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
You know.

Speaker 5 (22:25):
And then I read the novel and it got even deeper.
So I think there's a lot of there. In some sense,
our imagination I think moves faster than our reason. It
kind of grabs onto a sense of, oh, this is
important and there's something rich here, and it takes a
lot of time to unfold it and kind of delve
and excavate what's going on in there.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
And I think Zelda games kind of have that aspect.
You know.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
One of the features of Zelda as a game that
I love is this aspect of a territory that you've
passed through six or seven times and then you find
out that there's a secret, and that secret reminds you
that that environment itself is wonderful and you just have
gotten used to it, you know. And so yeah, I
think it's about awakening of an intuition that will require

(23:16):
further meditation to get into. It's sort of like how
scripture talks about, you know, chewing the cut.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
You need to return to scripture.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
I'm not putting, of course, all on the same level naturally,
but I think there's a similar effect in that, you know,
there are resources in our mind and that sort of
deeper archetypal resonance with things that we feel out a
sense of meaning, and then we need to circle back
and kind of you know, explore it again like you

(23:45):
do with places in Zelda.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
You know, yeah, absolutely, a great, great answer. It kind
of reminds you too, so we think it's like as poet,
like with poetry specifically, where a poem is not like
it can be analyzed in a sense, and maybe in
some way it should be. But a poem it's more
than like it's not like a puzzle, right, Like that's

(24:09):
something like we try to do, at least in my
circle of classical education, Like we don't analyze it and
solve it like a puzzle. It's more like taking a
step back appreciating a beautiful painting, like zooming in different places.
I always love the ts Eliot quote where he says
poetry communicates before it is understood, right, And it's like,
I think that's there's a connection there with something like

(24:32):
the world of Zelda, where it works, it works on
you and you understand it more, and there's something about
the imagery and symbolism there. I'm also a fan of
the Dark Souls games, and though more dark fantasy, much
less cartoonish, wouldn't wouldn't probably wouldn't recommend it to children
like I would with most of the Zelda games. But
it's the same reason why I love Dark Souls is

(24:54):
it's it does the same thing with fantasy, and it's
I think, really a fantasy world in the truest sense
because of that.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean that that subcreative instinct that
Tolkien talks about so well and on fairy stories, right.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
I saw Andrew had a video essay about this.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
I think in March you posted this on your on
your podcast, and you know, I think that that it's
it's interesting to think about the relationship between world building
in virtual space versus on the on the written page.
And you know, I'm still thinking through how Tolkien would

(25:35):
think about that, because you know, he obviously says the
written word is superior to drama or fairy stories, right,
And I agree with him on that fundamentally.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
But I also think that where the.

Speaker 5 (25:49):
Human mind goes, we will need myth there to deal
with it. And I think Zala one thing Zalda helps
us to do is to think about these digital spaces
that are so you know, between social media and our
bank accounts and everything, the online space Dark Souls, which

(26:10):
I know about from friends I haven't actually played, but
in Zala, they kind of help us to deal with
the fact that so much of our lives are in
computers now, and we need adventure there because the human
condition it won't tolerate not having adventure.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
We need it everywhere we go, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, that connection to the broader digital space. I think
it's worthwhile. You know, a lot of there's definitely this
certain I guess prejudice towards video games. You know that
their child is they are waste of time, that sort
of thing that you know, if we're really honest with ourselves,
are we benefiting ourselves more with an hour of Twitter

(26:50):
or an hour of Zelda like which is more grounding,
which allows us to get more in tune with ourselves?
And I think that's a question worth asking.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
Yeah, exactly, I'll try it in my doom scrolling for
fighting gannandor pretty much anytime.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
You know. That's that's a great point.

Speaker 6 (27:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
So, as a follow up, just to pro a little
bit deeper into the Zelda aspects of this, what would
you say are some of the either the most obvious
and or the most profound mythopic elements in the Legends
of Zelda series, And as far as like picking a
specific game or specific elements, you can kind of take

(27:35):
that wherever you want.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
Well, I think one that comes to mind immediately, of course,
is the Triforce I mean, that's that's such an iconic
symbol that even people have never played Zelda usually know
what it is if they see it. Like I have
the Triforce on my wallet, and someone will say, is
that the triforce?

Speaker 4 (27:53):
You know? And they don't say, is that a triforce?

Speaker 5 (27:55):
They say the Triforce like they understand, you know, the language,
even if they've not.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
Encountered the game.

Speaker 5 (28:02):
And I think that idea of manifesting higher order concepts
in a physical way, the talisman, that sort of enchanted
object that makes it's almost you know, you mentioned Plato
and it's sort of like this kind of Platonic manifestation
of the harmony of courage, wisdom and power. And I

(28:27):
think in that sense what it's as a mythopleic symbol,
the tri force is teaching us about what Plato would
call the unity of the virtues, to say that, well,
you can't really use power. Well, if you're not courageous,
you're gonna use it in a cowardly way, which Gannendorf

(28:48):
falls into. He ends up wrapping himself in a tower
because he knows that he's created a lot of hatred
for himself, you know, And you're also not a genius power. Well,
if you're not wise, but likewise, you can't really be
courageous if you're not willing to develop your power, and
you actually, you know, Plato talks about this too. You

(29:09):
can't actually have a person who is brave but not wise,
But you also can't have a person who's wise but
not brave. And I love Plato, and I love reading
about Plato, but I think there is something about the
true nature of those virtues kind of clicking together and

(29:30):
enriching each other, that the tri force just makes make
sense for me in a way that I didn't get
exactly out of reading Plato, even though he helped me
interpret the idea, you know. And so I think that
sort of concrete imagery. You understand the idea that a
triangle is not a triangle without three points, and so

(29:51):
the virtue is not the virtue without its two related virtues, right,
And so I think that idea of making a wish well,
in a sense, if you enjoy any particular action, if
you pursue any outcome, if you're gonna do it, well,
you're gonna have to in some sense have power to

(30:12):
do it. You're gonna have to have a little courage,
Like it's a little scary to be on this podcast.
What if I say something silly and now it's out
there for the world, you know, And well, I'm gonna
have to use my wisdom to try and say something
that makes a little bit of sense. And I'm gonna
have to have the fortitude, which is a kind of
power to deal with it if I say something a

(30:33):
little clunky and that's that's okay, you know. And so
I think that idea then has like almost like a
mathematical equation, a lot of repeatable application in other places,
you know, a little more concretely, though, Tolkien talks about

(30:54):
the arresting image, you know, that that sort of arresting
strangeness and inoperative time on the tree that link lives in.
At the base, there's this little drawing he did, maybe
from one of his visions, of a little figure kind
of himself fighting a monster with Navi, a little fairy companion.

(31:16):
That's the base arresting image from which the fantasy of
Zelda is built, right, And you might say, well, what
a childish little drawing. Well, of course, but childish drawings
are where the great painter started. And if you let
that childish drawing continue, it might then go from childish

(31:38):
to child like and to have a child like wonder
for drawing, you know, as an adult. And I think
the same is true of the adventures that you know
that Zelda is calling us to.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Absolutely, it kind of reminds me of and I'm going
to like paraphrase it a little bitcause I don't know
exactly what the direct quote is.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
But C. S.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Lewis kind of about this this idea of like writing
out of these images in a sense where it's like
people are like, oh, so you just like elaborately thought
out this entire like allegory for like the entire Christian story,
And he's kind of like, no, Like it's like I'm
a Christian, but like I was really just thinking about
like this image of like a fawn in this in
this lamp post and like the winter something along those lines,

(32:20):
and like just Narnia just built out of that.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
It's not just like he's not just sitting there like
scientifically precisely just writing everything out, being like how can
I tie this in with my Christian beliefs? So it
flows out of us?

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Right?

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Like it's it's more than it's cerebral in a sense,
but it's it's more than that, indifferent than that in
some other ways as well.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's why we talk about
an artistic vision, not an artistic argument, right. I mean
I was thinking, there's kind of a course you were asking,
you know, why do I find these things so captivating
without being able to articulate them.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
I think it's probably.

Speaker 5 (33:00):
In the same essay collection where I think it's on
stories in that collection where Lewis says, well, good artists
put what they mean to into a text, but great
ones put more than they mean, right, And there's an
aspect that a great artist actually learns how to take
that maybe youthful kind of wonderment and capture it enough

(33:25):
to retain it within the not of words or the
virtual space they create without controlling it too closely.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
You know.

Speaker 5 (33:34):
If there's a place where George MacDonald I think it's
called The Fantastic Imagination, where he says that fairy tales
are kind of like butterflies, right, you kind of have
to let the butterfly be a butterfly. And it's like
if someone if you're looking at a butterfly and someone
comes along and says, well, what's your reason for looking
at that butterfly? Give me an argument like, well, you

(33:55):
don't understand what it is to stare at butterflies like
they're just beautiful and it just does something for you.
And the appreciator of art and the artists seemed to
both kind of have that instinct, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, in probably the same messay you're alluding to. I
always mix up his on stories and on three ways
of writing for children, but one of those he says that,
you know, a bad storyteller is going to ask the
question what do people need to hear? And then you
just can be very condescending and religious propagandic, or you
can ask what's better is what's what's the story that

(34:32):
I need to hear? At least then it's a bit
more existential, more introspective, a bit more humble. But he
said that the best storytellers ask the question, what's the
story that I have to tell? And that's naturally going
to pull out of your spiritual, imaginative roots.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:48):
Yeah, I think there's this aspect of trusting our imagined
instincts as having something real to them, and I think
this is the point that you know.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
For example, words Worth deals with a lot.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
In his writing, those imagic those those memories that stick
with you. They stick with you for a reason. You
might not you might have the wrong reason, but don't
ban in the memory for that reason.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
And and I.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Think the same is true of those bits of fantasy
that just something about them sparkles and draws the eye.
And we should probably listen to that, you know. Again,
it's kind of like the Butterfly and the Last Uniport.
Don't listen to me, listen, you know. And I think
the author kind of has to say that too, you know.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, definitely. So I guess I'm gonna kind of have
you make a uh an apologia here for us, just
because there's something I've heard from a lot of people
who and it's not a it's certainly a good thing
in a lot of ways to be into games that
have just really explicitly well told complex stories with a

(35:59):
lot of obvious philosophical depth. I mean, we've talked about
like Knights the Old Republic one and two, especially two
in that regard on this, and that's a great example
of that to me. But something I hear is that
sometimes people will be like, well, you know, yeah, Zelda
has more writing and substance to it that's obvious than
like something like Mario or you know, maybe Donkey Kong

(36:21):
in some ways, but Zelda is still a little bit
generic with generic characters as a very predictable story. The
protagonist is boring, there's it's not well written like some
of these, like something like a Final Fantasy game might
be right, which has a bunch of dialogue and like
well fleshed out backstories. So how would you defend that, right? Like,

(36:43):
what would you what would be your defense that you
would give if somebody said that to you just randomly somewhere.

Speaker 5 (36:50):
Yeah, I think that in a way that argument often
it sort of sounds like, you know, the argument. Again,
it's Tolkien as well, where it's sort of like, well,
all the characters are sort of flat, with a couple
of exceptions like there's only bora mirror or something, right,
But actually most of the characters are much more complicated

(37:12):
than it first appears.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Right.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
So, I mean, for one, Proto is much more plagued
by the Nightmare of the One Rings than you really
ever understand until you get to Sam's brief experience with it,
and it's filling his head with these thoughts, you know,
and you realize Proto is writing Lord of the Rings

(37:35):
is actually withholding from the page, probably a lot of
format and anguish that you don't really see. And I
think what it is is Tolkien often treats his characters
with dignity and subtlety, and you have to sit with
it to kind of see what's really going on. He's
not hasty about sort of voyeuristically going into the inner

(37:58):
workings of a particular character. And I think in the
same way, Zelda is often very subtle with its portrayal
of what's going on. So there's environmental storytelling, and there
are things that you can miss. Zelda wants you to
pay attention to see you could be missing something, which
is actually a lot more like real life if you

(38:18):
think about it, Like you have a person who you're
sort of frustrated with them, and you think, oh, they're
always late, they're always laid all the time, and you're
just annoyed by it. And what a corny thing to
be laid all the time? What a stock trope, you know,
And you have the kind of the same thing with
Link At the opening of Ochernt of time. He's a
lazy boy, says Navi.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
How can I rule depend on him? Right?

Speaker 5 (38:41):
Well, that's a little bit stock. But actually, the more
you think about it, this is someone whose mother died
when he was in infancy, who is with the people
who is not his own.

Speaker 4 (38:53):
He's deeply alone.

Speaker 5 (38:54):
He doesn't even have a fairy, which is a wonderful
stroke of mythopoetic genius to be because it's like this,
no one in this world has a fairy. But then
they immediately are like, you know, this poor bully who
doesn't even have a fair, and we're like, oh no,
you know, how could how could that be? And he's
also he's also having nightmares throughout the night, which is

(39:15):
stopping him from sleeping. Well, and that's why he's sleeping
during the day, right, And so it may look generic,
but actually the game is telling us, you know, pay attention,
there's more to the ins and outs that's going on in.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
A person's life.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
And I actually think that there's a kind of storytelling
in patients where we want a lot of flash and bang,
But if you pay attention to the particulars of each story,
you'll find that there is a lot of nuance and
a lot of subtlety there. But the other thing I
want to say about it too, is and this is

(39:50):
I guess maybe kind of a Lewis type move. Let's
say something for the generic. I mean, the word generic
comes from genre, which means, you know, a category story.
But genre also comes from the word gene and the
word gender. So you're like a story about a man

(40:12):
and a woman falling in love.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
How generic?

Speaker 5 (40:14):
Well, that's also how procreation a new life comes into being.
Let's not sneer at these basic things. And you know,
just as your body needs water and your soul needs transcendence,
your imagination needs a boy with his very fighting a dragon.
And I don't think we should roll our eyes at
those those archetypes, which are different from stereotypes. As generic,

(40:38):
I think there's it's it's kind of like I guess
since I'm kind of talking along on this one, but
it's a little bit like the difference between a cliche
and a proverb. You know, a real cliche is is
just a lazy grab at like it's like a false
wisdom proverb. You might be tired of hearing it, but

(41:01):
if you if you really sit with it, you'll see that.
It's a truth you do not want to give up.
And I would say that the generic qualities of occrone
at Time and others all the games are exactly that.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Yeah, all very well said. In my opinion, you've successfully
defended yourself. Of course, Socrates would have many more questions
for you, But I also believe that Socrates would have
better taste than those kinds of questions too, So I'm
going to choose to believe that, and I think that's
just very justifiable.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
So we didn't died this way earlier about this idea
of you know, video games having meaning, trying to connect
the academy with that. Should at least and we'll say
at least the main line Zelda games here, But should
the mainline Zelda games be a part of our children's education,
like they're literary education, growing up play having them play

(42:01):
those video games as part of their upbringing and training
them for being adults one day and doing virtuous things
in the world.

Speaker 5 (42:11):
I think so, I would say, actually, probably not. Some
of the more recent zeldas I think Breath of the
Wild and Tears of the Kingdom actually are as much
as I enjoyed those games. I don't know if you've
if you've touched them at all, but they are a
bit more sprawling, and so I think they actually kind

(42:31):
of have the temptation for indulgence that video games are
more associated with.

Speaker 4 (42:36):
But yeah, I want my.

Speaker 5 (42:39):
Son or daughter to learn the temerity to go ahead
and walk into the darkness of the Daka tree and
feel the fear of seeing Queen Goma gazing with that
malevolent eye from the ceiling, and learn it's that Chestertonian
desire for our children to be brave enough to face
the monsters, just as I want my child to know

(43:01):
the hobbit. I think there are things in Zelda that
are wholesome and good for them to be able to encounter,
you know.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
So I do want to ask you a quick follow up,
based up what you said about the newer Zelda games,
which I haven't played. Would you say that the value
of video games like Zelda is principally found in the
more I guess, linear stories versus the open world games.
Is that kind of what you're hinting at.

Speaker 5 (43:33):
Yeah, roughly speaking, I mean I did find value in
playing those more open world games, which I mean, in
some sense all the three d Zeldas are kind of
open world, but they are still linear, as you said, right, Yeah,
I mean I think that Breath of the Wild and
Tears of the Kingdom, those those games, they they're less

(43:53):
symbolically saturated because there's just a lot of plot. So
the essay on Stories that you you alluded to, but
by C. S. Lewis talks about the difference of really
kind of experiencing like why this thing right? Why the
danger of a giant versus the danger of an army right?
And I think the more linear games preserve that sense.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
Of the ratio of.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
Sort of plot and gameplay to symbolic register, whereas I
think those larger, more sprawling games kind of lose some
of that. I think they actually lose some of that
placement of poetry to philosophy and delve almost into kind
of like a mythopoic history, which is interesting and has

(44:38):
its value, but it's just less symbolically rich and a
little more vulnerable to indulgence.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
Basically, I think.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah, it's definitely an interesting perspective. And this is something
I've thought of a lot, just pointing video games too,
because I'm usually maybe sometimes in the minority camp not
always broadly in the in this in this way, but
usually I actually prefer a lot of the installments in
a series that are are not the big open world one.

(45:12):
Like I love the Three Dark Souls games, Demon Souls
and Blood Born, and I did like elden Ring a lot,
but I actually, you know, it was the first truly
open world from soft RPG, and it was actually the
one that I probably enjoyed the least in a sense.
And I did feel I'd never played Tears of the Kingdom,

(45:32):
but I did play Birth of the Wild, and I
felt I felt quite similarly about that as I did
with with elden Ring as well, And so maybe there
is something to that, right, Like I think, I think
I kind of like it when the you said that
the symbol is in the aesthetics. Such things are kind
of more more more condensed, maybe a little bit more
saturated into just like a less area and less world

(45:56):
to be explored in a sense, still a lot still
a very vast adventure game type of world, somewhat linear
in a way, but yeah, usually kind of like my, uh,
my world's less open. So I mean, maybe you just
provide me a reason to think gone more about that.

Speaker 5 (46:14):
Yeah, well, what you're saying as we think about Toldien's distinction,
and I know you gentlemen are very familiar with this,
but the primary and secondary world idea, and I think
that ocerat of Time, for example, ends when you think,
you know, nineteen ninety eight operat of Time comes out.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
It's probably mostly like.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
Young ish players initially. You know there's a range there.
Of course, I'm still playing Operative Time. I just was
playing some of it yesterday. You know that I never stopped.
But but you know that the ending sequence where links
returned to an age that's probably the age of your

(46:54):
average player is then saying okay, now now go put
the game down.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
You finished it.

Speaker 5 (47:00):
Now go live a life with this understanding in hand,
Whereas I think that the kind of repeated endlessness of
Breath of the Wild is more like, well, now go
find another shrine or go play the game more, you know.
And I think there is value to how a game
like that helps us to kind of contextualize and enrich

(47:23):
the ideas of the previous games. But I think there's
a deeper love for the primary world in some of
those more structured games where they are not trying to
it's this kind of like Lewis on authorship, right, the
game is not trying to simply be a spectacle, but
be a pair of spectacles for the world that you

(47:45):
actually live in. And I think it's a little easier
to do that with those more symbolically defined gaming experiences
than say like World of Warcraft, which I think is
actually kind of toxical, endless, you know. And I'm not
I'm not trying to be negative to anyone who's a
fan of that. I think there's value to it, for sure,

(48:06):
but kind of kind of bothers me in that way.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Yeah, in my response to that, I think that I
largely agree that a very structured story is perhaps more
more poetic. I think that where the open world kind
of games can go well is when there's a real
emphasis on the story that develops from the decision making
that you do like when it becomes that kind of
open ended, right, because at that point you get into

(48:33):
the realm of like responsibility and morality and whatnot. But yeah,
if the game is just open those games, right, But
if the game is open in the sense of, yeah,
you just keep doing the same repetitive past, then that's
not very uplifting. But yeah, so I think it largely
depends on I mean, even as a structured story depends
on what's the story that's being told. That it all

(48:55):
comes down to, like what is the purpose? Is the
purpose to do something meaningful or is the purpose just
to kind of get into these endless addiction cycles.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:09):
Yeah, I will say, even though I have these critiques,
you know, Breath of the Wild and its sequel, Here's
the Kingdom, do you have these shrines? You know that
are They've been critiqued for having them because it's not
as they're not as good as dungeons, but you do
have this continual, sort of repetitive experience of finding the

(49:30):
sacred space and being either a spirit or or a
light of blessing. And they read an essay I don't
know who it was off the top of my head,
but they were comparing it to taking Holy Communion as
this kind of like repetitive experience of seeking out the
sacred again and again. And I thought that was kind
of an interesting point that I think that sometimes a

(49:53):
recognition that sacred experiences are actually often more frequent than
we know otis and those larger open world games can
maybe give us maybe a richer experience of that mapping on.
You know, I just I just think then it falls

(50:13):
a little more to the player to internally figure out
how do I regulate my attachment.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
To playing this game.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
Rather than the game itself kind of saying Okay, now
it's time to stop and kind of think about what
it means.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
You know, yeah, I think that well, I can appreciate
what that framing is trying to do in trying to
put a positive spin on these repetitive things that you
can find in games. I think that it falls short.
Is the repetition that we engage with things like communion,
is there's actually substance.

Speaker 5 (50:47):
There right right right, yeah, yeah, like actually breathing in
and breathing out every every every day, all day is
actually keeping you alive in a way that the repetition
of a the you know, uh, role playing, you know,
grinding game.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
And it doesn't do right because whether we're talking about
things that keep us alive physically or spiritually, at that point,
we're not just engaging with the imagination, which is where
games do their best, and engaging with imagination and so
I don't know, I can't totally buy the you know,
I keep going to the shrines and Zelda and that's
like communion. I appreciate what it's trying to do in theory,

(51:26):
but I feel like it's mixing categories of what it
is that games are meant to accomplish.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Yeah, yeah, I I fundamentally agree with that.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Yeah, I appreciate those thoughts. There's a lot to consider.
I think they're from both sides of like the open
world and the uh the non open world, if you may.
But yeah, I think at the end of the day, too,
like an open world game, it's really about probably not
even much as like open world as it is, like
how substantial can you make that open world? Even a

(51:57):
game like Eldon Ring. I can see that it's there,
it's just that, Honestly, a lot of that for me
is kind of subjective because the season of life in
which I played it, and I just had way less
time to play that game than I did when I
think it was in like fifth or sixth grade when
Oblivion was released on the Xbox three sixty and I
still I had plenty of time to play a couple

(52:20):
hundred hours of Oblivion, and I also played World of
Warcraft and run Escape around those same times, and exploring
all the options in Oblivion was certain a lot more
than you know, I don't even want to know countless
hours that I spent just chopping wood and selling you logs
and RuneScape. So I lots of chew on there, a lot,

(52:40):
a lot to think about it before I begin to
say more.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
Yeah, I mean, I do think there is something to
be said for having a little bandwidth for for just
for play, you know, and to kind of delight in
that to some extent is not necessarily bad.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
And it reminds me.

Speaker 5 (53:00):
I had a discussion with a student who was frustrated
by someone who was she was talking with who was
saying that like, playing Minecraft is like just as satisfying
as actually building something with your hands, which, of course
I think I would have to say, as a lover
of the primary world, that that's absurd. Of course, building

(53:21):
something with your hands is more important than playing Minecraft. However,
I do think that building something in Minecraft can give
you an experience that can help you to imagine building
things more richly, and that is valuable too, right provided
you take it as something too and enrich rather than
to replace. And I think that's where like kind of

(53:45):
what Andrew's saying about Holy Communion.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
You know, you don't want these.

Speaker 5 (53:50):
Virtual spaces to feel like they're replacing the adventure, And I.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Think that's a really it can be difficult to suss out, you.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Know, I think that if we're really honest with ourselves,
that determinent's not difficult to really whatever we're engaging with
ask myself is whatever I'm doing, is this actually benefiting
my life? And if you're honest with yourself, you generally
know the answer to that question. And I think that's
that's a good safeguard about where we could get lost
in these virtual spaces versus where they can inspire us.

(54:19):
And I've talked to many people who have gone on
to get phs and history in part because they played
Civilization as a kid, Like these things can inspire us
in the right direction, which we have to be honest
with ourselves regarding what direction they're taking us.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
M So, Anthony, what would you recommend if somebody wanted
to get into what we've talked about further and obviously
references to the Lewis and Tolkien essays and sources, but
specifically getting further into one study on these topics in Zelda,

(55:01):
but just in video games broadly as well.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
Yeah. Well, I have a couple of books here on
my desk.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
I could I could do a little show and tell
if that would be all right.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
This one is called The Psychology of Zelda.

Speaker 5 (55:15):
Uh Anthony Bean uh and it's it's got a great
hero's journey essay on there. And I think that idea
of thinking about the archetypes and some of those more
kind of union approaches to Zelda is really really good.
Another one that I like is this book. It's called
The Legends All the Anthology. So these are mostly Zelda

(55:35):
and books.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
This is Jonathan Walls, and there's a wonderful essay yeah,
by Phillip town Is it Philip taylon Let me see here.
I think I've got that right, Yeah, Philip Taylon on
just kind of a great last name for for zalda
sub creation uh and and Tolkien.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
Uh. There, So that's that's one.

Speaker 5 (55:58):
And then also uh, Luke Cuddy's Legends All thea in Philosophy,
and he's got a nice piece there on kind of
some of the questions we're talking about on can can
video games be art? Which of course I would say
yes to that, uh, and so does he. So those

(56:20):
those are three good books. There are are uh things
like Game Studies, which an online journal that the one
can read. There's also, though, in the more mythopolic vein
myth Lore, the Journal of the myth Plic Society.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Right, so those are some places that you can go.

Speaker 5 (56:41):
I'm not really a video game scholar by trade. I'm
I'm a medievalists that kind of played around in the
camp of a video.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Games scholarship a little bit.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
But those are some some examples that would give.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
I absolutely love the world play on like different like
pop culture and philosophy titles I link before I am.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
I'm not.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
I'm not a Hunger games guy by any means, genuinely
don't know much about it. But the pop culture and
philosophy there's it's like the Hunger Games and philosophy and
it's like a critique of pure trees, and like, I
just love these things. Some people are probably cringing right
now at that, but I don't care if they are. Also,
it's fine if you do.

Speaker 5 (57:29):
Like it, you know, Uh, it's it's Samuel Johnson, I
think who said that puns are the lowest form of wits.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
And I respectfully disagree.

Speaker 5 (57:41):
I think I think puns are, you know, great little
reminders of the philosophy of words, which obviously Tolkien teaches
us all about.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
There's an art to using a pun. Well, it's just
like any other like poetic device, right, I mean, irony
is some times misunderstood. Sometimes irony is just poorly done,
But it doesn't mean that irony is not good in
a sense. There's really strong uses of irony, and there's
there's some weak ones. There's a lot in between. I

(58:13):
think puns are the same way.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
And the same with games, right, I mean games can
be indulgent and ridiculous, and the player of the game
can can be indulgent and fail to find deeper meaning.
But abuse doesn't cancel use, as Tolkien reminds us.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Other than are there any other major games of franchises
that you would indoors or that have a special place
for you?

Speaker 5 (58:42):
Well, one series that I actually am quite fond of
and was recently remastered for the Switch, well for for
several platforms. This would be more along the lines of
what Josh was saying with Dark Souls, But I really
am fond of the Legacy of King Uh series blown
Omen one and two, Soul Reab one and two in Defiance,

(59:04):
and Uh, they're they're much darker. They're not you know,
as as sort of whimsical as as the Zelda games are,
but they have a kind of maybe a sort of
undead mythipoic kind of imagination and dealing with a lot
of questions about fate and free will and you know

(59:25):
the image of a vampire as you know, this distortion
of what it what it means to be human that
I really, I really am uh fascinated by. I think
a lot of the questions that those kinds of stories
bring up about like what is the soul? What is
the soul's relationship to the body, which that the mind

(59:47):
body problem also has to do questions we were talking
about like what is a poem?

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Is the poem the reading of the.

Speaker 5 (59:53):
Poem or the text, you know, And and so I
think those games have a lot of rich value to them.
Another series I actually wrote an essay on Beliethian philosophy,
and a video game called Medieval that was uh for
the for the PlayStation re released a few years ago,

(01:00:15):
where you play a reanimated skeleton who was defeated embarrassingly
in battle like right at the beginning, he was leading
the charge and dies, and then he gets to come
back and fight his way, you know, through the hordes.
So that's another game that I'm I'm I have appreciation for.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Yeah, oh Josh, do you have any other questions that
we haven't gotten to yet?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
I know I've gone through all of mine. So wherever
you guys want to go or if you want to
end it now, it's up to you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
All right, fantastic Anthony. Is there anything else that you
feel like we should talk about?

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
You know, I I don't have anything off the top
of my head. I had some notes here that just
in case she asked me any hard questions that that
stumped me, But these we're all all really fun. Yeah,
I guess, I guess the The one thing I'll just
uh end with what I want to say is.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
That I think this conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:01:16):
Really is such a it's such a blessing to me
to be able to talk with you all about this,
and that this is kind of that that sense of
what draws us together, that as we feel the kind
of it kind of almost mystical sense of what you know,
brings us to something like Zelda or to the Hobbit,

(01:01:37):
and and you know Lewis taught, is it Lewis and
surprised by joy or something?

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
He says.

Speaker 5 (01:01:42):
So in friendship is born when you say what you two.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
I thought I was the only one you know? Uh,
and and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:48):
Saying without reading William Morris or something you know, And
and I think in this sense it's it's really in
some sense, fantasy is a vehicle which we discover that
friendship really is a wonderful thing and a gift, you know.
And the kind of friendship that comes out of discovering

(01:02:11):
these beautiful things I think is a real, just a real,
incredible blessing that we should have great grateful appreciation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
So yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Yeah, excuse me. I think that's a good way to wrap.
Definitely appreciate you coming on the show, and we'll have
to have you again sometime maybe on the other show
to talk Boethius. I feel like that's something that we
need to do.

Speaker 5 (01:02:34):
I'm always up for talking about Etheus.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
All right, fantastic, all right, thank you Anthony, thank you Josh,
And we'll go ahead and wrap it there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
Thank you. Jennen thank you bye, all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Right, thank you for listening, and thank you Josh for
facilitating the conversation. Thank you Doctor Syrilla for for joining
us and talking about the myth of poic nature of Legend.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Of Zelda series.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
We'll be doing a three parter on Mass Effect covering
each of those games, and so I look forward to
where we're going with that. Make sure that if you're
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(01:03:22):
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(01:03:44):
to all of my courses that begin within that yearly term.
So right now, that's plato Stoicism until we have faces,
the Elder Scrolls and philosophy and the Silmarillion. So go
ahead and join today' support what we're doing and get
access to all of that stuff. But that's for now.
I'd see next time for mass effect.

Speaker 6 (01:04:02):
Until then goesby.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
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,

(01:04:43):
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 or flying home. And now I will
make answer to you, o, my judges, and show that

(01:05:06):
he who has lived as a true philosopher has reason
to be of good cheer when he is about to die,
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,

(01:05:27):
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 Lewis's retelling of the
Cupid and psyche Myth until we have faces with this
incredible novel, which he believed to be his best. Lewis
demonstrates the tensions and ancient thought, and even more significantly,

(01:05:49):
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

(01:06:10):
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

(01:06:32):
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

(01:06:52):
recorded presentations for you to watch at your leisure, ongoing
discord chats, and weekly life meetings to discuss the readings
enrolled today by go into 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