©SQUARE ENIX/HUMAN COMMITTEE
The great paradox of “tragedy” with a capital T in art and literature is that the ending is always the most important and The least interesting part of the experience. On the one hand, any classic tragedy needs its painful but inevitable ending to solidify the story’s themes and provide the emotional catharsis the audience has been looking for since the story began. Still, the nature of tragedy demands that the ending not be surprising or subversive, because the power of the character’s destined journey is due in part to the audience being in step with the storyteller every step of the way. To muddle this symbiotic relationship with cheap twists or misguided attempts to soften the blow betrays the entire point of the genre. (If you want a completely unexpected companion piece to watch this week NieR: Automatago watch Will Ferrell’s adorable 2006 tragicomedy, stranger than fiction).
This is why Shakespeare spends so much of Act Five describing Hamlet’s struggle with his own conflicted nature rather than working things out with Claudius. Here’s why we’ve been stuck in a trance for half a century as we share the edge of darkness and uncertainty waiting for godot Diddy and Gogo, and why the show would be ruined if we had these two off the hook, either running away together or dead; this is why the Coen brothers and Cormac McCarthy could kill off Lou off-screen Erin No place for old people Let its lead monster limp off into the sunset. You can’t simply guess that a character in a tragedy is doomed from the start. The ending has to get under your skin, into your bones, so that when the curtain closes and the credits roll, all you can do in response is nod resignedly and say to yourself, “Yeah of course. It couldn’t have been any different.” . correct“.
As I said from the beginning Neil review, as much as I love and respect this attempt to adapt one of my favorite video games into a completely different medium, it never quite captures what makes NieR: Automata First of all it’s great. I accepted this fact early on, but it’s fun to watch the story develop over the weekly animated episodes regardless, because it makes the game’s strengths come alive even more in retrospect. 9S and A2’s final climb to their ultimate fate is beautifully choreographed and filled with all the drama, action and spectacle you’d expect. I even think the anime still has an advantage over the game in some areas, such as the connection between A2 and the evil Red Girl feeling stronger as the Pearl Harbor Descendants story is integrated into the story itself.
Still, the anime loses a single aspect of the game that makes it work so well as a classic piece of tragic literature in digital form: remaining intact as 9S loses his mind and resolves to slaughter every robot and machine, including A2, it is you Just press the button and push the joystick to do this. When the game finally pits our remaining “heroes” against each other in a final duel to the death, everything hinges on you to decide which character to side with. Hell, even if you inevitably reload your save to choose other options and see how it affects the ending, NieR: Automata still manages to fit the act of warping time and manipulating narrative into its larger web of gaming narrative culpability. And then there’s the game’s final ending, E, which… well, we’ll see what the show does with that when we get there.
The point is, if you simply check NieR: Automata As a collection of characters, scenes, and lines of dialogue, it becomes a well-executed but rather bland sci-fi melodrama. The pacing is a bit wonky as the storyline needs to be edited; the character pacing remains largely predictable; some of the larger plot and narrative features feel undercooked, such as the take on Devola and Popola Dealing with, or insulting the red girl. Only when all these different pieces come together to form a tapestry, and the interactive mechanics in which players engage act as the thread that connects each different piece together, NieR: Automata It became one of the biggest capital tragedies of the 21st century.
Imagine, if you will, Hamlet standing in that looming hall, wondering whether it would be better “to be or not to be.” For the past four hundred years, readers and viewers have had to sit silently and observe from the other side of the fourth wall, like those poor fools trapped within the confines of the stage, unable to act or change the fate of the characters. . What anime is there NieR: Automata What we fail to capture in these crucial final moments is that the game makes players complicit in tragedies that they never could have been had they just sat back and passively watched these events unfold from behind a veil of safety of accomplice. It was as if each of us were being guided individually on stage, placing a hand on Hamlet’s shoulder and gently nudging him towards his final destination. It doesn’t change anything that happens in the story, but it changes everything About what it means to us.
As another act comes to an end another tale of futile revenge and needless death, NieR: Automata Version 1.1a Still a great summary of a story that can’t really be told outside of the medium in which it was created. It was doomed from the start. I guess that makes it a worthy tragedy in its own right after all. A huge paradox indeed.
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NieR: Automata version 1.1a Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found in twitterhis blog and his podcast.
