ok, so what's up with that Nietzsche quote at the beginning of the game?? [BG1 Spoilers]
Dorcus
Member Posts: 270
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"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you..." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I've been playing Baldur's Gate pretty much since it was new and I never really questioned it before now. It's a pretty snappy quote, one for the ages, and it SEEMS to fit, but I'm unsure of where exactly it fits into Baldur's Gate 1 thematically and philosophically. I get the general point of fighting monsters could make you become a monster, but couldn't the same be said about any Dungeons & Dragons video game, or most video games? (I'm imagining Mario after saving Princess Toadstool realizing that by in stomping the Koopas he has become the Koopas.) Your whole fate/destiny/birthright is thrust onto you the moment you interact with Carbos and Shank, and even if you deliberately choose to ignore them, your fate/destiny/birthright still catches up to you when you witness the Murder of your foster father. There doesn't seem to be any choice involved in the matter since it pretty much is inescapable if you decide to play the game as intended. There's no other outcome but to fight the monsters and kill stuff and be the demi-avatar of the God of Murder if you move forward the main quest and go from Candlekeep to the Temple of Bhaal. Everybody's out to kill you. It's kill or be killed in this game. The abyss already gazed into you before you were born. Murder is literally in your blood. "No, John. You are the demons." In Baldur's Gate 2 it opens up a bit in terms of Choice & Consequence, but I'm unsure of how the developers intended to tie it together into Baldur's Gate 1. So, yeah, this is just me overthinking things. A lot. Existentialism is for the birds. OK, so what I really want to know is if anybody at Beamdog has any design documents or even anecdotes that explain why this quote was chosen by the original developers. I'm just looking for insight as to authorial intent for that decision, because I think in a broad sense it kinda fits, but in a specific sense to the plot and themes of the game it seems at odds to me, given how fatalistic the combat is in this game. I don't think there's anything at all you can do about not becoming a monster in Baldur's Gate 1. Baldur's Gate 2, maybe, ultimately..? But in BG1 there's nothing you can do to change the course of the main plot. So why was this quote chosen?
Maybe I'm wrong and it does fit? Feel free to disagree. Tell me what you think. It's just a little odd having played BG for so long that now I question it.
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you..." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I've been playing Baldur's Gate pretty much since it was new and I never really questioned it before now. It's a pretty snappy quote, one for the ages, and it SEEMS to fit, but I'm unsure of where exactly it fits into Baldur's Gate 1 thematically and philosophically. I get the general point of fighting monsters could make you become a monster, but couldn't the same be said about any Dungeons & Dragons video game, or most video games? (I'm imagining Mario after saving Princess Toadstool realizing that by in stomping the Koopas he has become the Koopas.) Your whole fate/destiny/birthright is thrust onto you the moment you interact with Carbos and Shank, and even if you deliberately choose to ignore them, your fate/destiny/birthright still catches up to you when you witness the Murder of your foster father. There doesn't seem to be any choice involved in the matter since it pretty much is inescapable if you decide to play the game as intended. There's no other outcome but to fight the monsters and kill stuff and be the demi-avatar of the God of Murder if you move forward the main quest and go from Candlekeep to the Temple of Bhaal. Everybody's out to kill you. It's kill or be killed in this game. The abyss already gazed into you before you were born. Murder is literally in your blood. "No, John. You are the demons." In Baldur's Gate 2 it opens up a bit in terms of Choice & Consequence, but I'm unsure of how the developers intended to tie it together into Baldur's Gate 1. So, yeah, this is just me overthinking things. A lot. Existentialism is for the birds. OK, so what I really want to know is if anybody at Beamdog has any design documents or even anecdotes that explain why this quote was chosen by the original developers. I'm just looking for insight as to authorial intent for that decision, because I think in a broad sense it kinda fits, but in a specific sense to the plot and themes of the game it seems at odds to me, given how fatalistic the combat is in this game. I don't think there's anything at all you can do about not becoming a monster in Baldur's Gate 1. Baldur's Gate 2, maybe, ultimately..? But in BG1 there's nothing you can do to change the course of the main plot. So why was this quote chosen?
Maybe I'm wrong and it does fit? Feel free to disagree. Tell me what you think. It's just a little odd having played BG for so long that now I question it.
Post edited by Dorcus on
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Comments
It's a great quote to be sure and an awful lot of people like to feel superior by nodding sagely and thinking it's just so true.
But the fact is they only get to make those sort of judgements because there are "men on the wall" risking becoming monstrous.
In BG you become the "man on the wall" (if you don't play evil) and when it's all over you can bet your bottom dollar there will be those standing around virtue signaling that they are "untainted" compared to you.
It's actually kind of trite when you think about it too much. Far too easy to spout such stuff when you have never been in situations and always believe there are choices.
However, I do believe that IRL it is an important warning on how much violence can generate more violence, and one can never find truth and justice by resorting to anger. Anger , in fact, is but the second stage of coping with loss and a long way from real enlightement (denial-anger-negotiation-depression-acceptance).
The eventual conclusion to the trilogy is that
It sums up the primary conflict underlying the story of Charname-- not the conflict between Charname and Sarevok, or the one between Charname and Irenicus, or the one between Charname and Mellisan, but the one between Charname and his/her tainted heritage. And it correctly identifies the descent to evil as one that is easy but certainly not inevitable, a point that is nicely echoed in the Hell Trials, where a single evil choice can push you over the edge and no amount of good choices can save you.
As a standalone quote pertaining strictly to the events of BG1, I agree it's one of those things that sounds cool more than anything, (like Jules' speech in Pulp Fiction). But like I said, we know the developers were already looking to the future and laying little hints along the way, and in that context, this was just one more little breadcrumb.
Heed the warning
This is just a videogame. Don't stare at it too long and don't take it for real life. You might loose your sense of reality.
The original Nietzsche is pretty general and has been interpreted through the ages in various ways.
Just an example - some agent with a mission to infiltrate a criminal organisation has to perform one or the other deed to remain undetected. For how long can he still see the thin line until he becomes a criminal himself?
A soldier in a war - for how long can one fight and kill without being forever changed into someone you never wnated to be?
And Wagner was as antisemitic as you can be.
But what a sister does 25 years after the man's death is another thing.
And Wagner was antisemitic in the way most 19th century central europeans were (he died in 1883 - Hitler was born in 1889). This was the climate the Nazis later used, but it does not make him a Nazi, nor the fact that he was Hitler's favourite composer and that his heirs were making their fortunes out of that.
This is like in the BG trilogy - you are a child of Bhaal and people tend to judge you for that. The game is about what you do with it. If there is any lesson to be learned from a video game it may be this.
Just sayin'.
I don't think anybody had said "Nietzsche's sister was enthusiastic towards Nazis - therefore he was Nazi as well!".
Just sayin'.
I am aware that Nietzschean philosophy did not share biological obsession with Nazis (and even if he did, his hostile attitude towards Germans would probably make them choose some other race to be ubermensch), but still, he is exist within certain tradition, tradition of Spencer's sociodarwinism, and not far away - Gobineau's and Chamberlain's "scientific" racism.
Sure, his antisemitism was perfectly understandable.
To point out that he was a part of tradition that gave birth to Nazism.
...On second thought, let's stay on topic.
Do that and I promise to keep my underpants out of it
You know, in case people are interested.
Nietzsche did not create in the void, you know.
Nietzsche, Nietzche, who the f*ck is Nietzche?
(sounds better if you know the "Alice" song)
But it's been buzzing around my head since reading this thread.
Of course, 5-year-old me had no idea who Nietzsche was, and I didn't really find out until my mid-teens. However, I'd occasionally see people write this quote on Facebook, or something similar, and I'd always assume they were low-key Baldur's Gate fans, until I was maybe 15 or so, and realized that the quote wasn't original to the game...
Perhaps not one of my brightest moments, but hey, I was a teenager when being emo was the cool thing to do. I had a lot more to worry about than where a quote from a childhood video game came from. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
And if you think even more about it, how many times do we, in real life, have the same discriminations as the masses (Harpers, commoners, etc.) against Bhaalspawns or people who are considered Others. I don't know about you guys, but when I play Charname I suddenly felt the plight of minorities and the marginialized.
P.S. I love this quote by Nietzsche. I'm currently reading one of his first books The Gay Science and the stuff in there is gold dust.
P.P.S I'm also enjoying the discussion around Nietzsche as well. I'm just curious about the demography of the BG fans here. Do you guys read philosophy in school or are you people simply modestly sophisticated?
The second in a way can be found purely in the character itself. In a game built around fighting creatures and monsters. Some of which are "human" and your rising to power and fighting these creatures. In some ways your walking that fine line of potentially going to far and becoming something else. There's always that potential for going to far before you realize it.
Oddly as appended to BG they suggest an slightly unfulfilled promise of alternative quest resolutions to me, pitting the powergamer against the roleplayer. While evil players have often been unrewarded, it would be interesting if killing & behaving in a Bhaal-esque fashion in the game gave you mechanical rewards & xp while behaving in a goody-goody fashion may give you the respect of in-game actors. Of course behaving in a too evil fashion for too long may give the Bhaal soul a hold over you... so dialogue trees become narrower and you may occasionally beserk or otherwise lose control even as your stats improve... That seems like one alternative path which the game could have pursued perhaps?
I was terrible at it.