Discussion: Is There Real Meaning in Visual Novels?

Off-Topic
#1

Recently in the H-scenes in Visual Novels thread I made the following statement about visual novels:

I would like to clarify what I was thinking with the following example:

You don’t go see an amazing view with beautiful scenery for any practical reason (to gain knowledge, money, friends, etc), you do it for “entertainment.” All entertainment shares this aspect: its not something anyone needs. But at the same time, its not a game, its an experience. You don’t walk away from that scene thinking it was pointless. Similarly, if you think about VNs as “just games” you’re never gonna get anything out of them.

@Pepe also brings up that:

What do you guys think?
To what extent are VNs just games, just made-up stories, and how can they actually be meaningful and teach us something?
Can you really experience what the protagonist is experiencing, and how do your own past experiences limit (or extend) how you relate to the characters?

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#2

You say this comment as if it’s an either, or. Fiction can ALWAYS be both, in my opinion, at least. Hope most people agree with me, ahaha~

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#3

There are tons of valuable message in visual novels and their no doubt made with an experience in mind. Trying to think of a good way to write this without going to crazy.

Looking to Maeda in his description of ‘moe’ in his characters- He makes characters that in some way, shape or form some reader can relate or feel a bond to at least one of them by either there attitude or problem- Whether it be similar to the protagonists motivations or their own drive to work towards that characters journey reaching its end. Also, anyone can say that each story is certainly made with certain themes in mind to make the reader apply the scenarios in the story to their own lives and to learn something from them. I find, at least. Example: Angel Beats is all about life. It aims to have you learn life appreciation, no matter how good or bad things are. Accept the life you have and work to make it the best you can.

But really, you can just search around character threads or discussion threads on various VNs here and no doubt find that countless people learn from and our moved by these works of art. It’s part of why this place is here. :3

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#4

Going ham on the important discussions.

Why can’t they be both? It’s a game. I can jump back and forth, skip through whatever I want, reload whenever I make a mistake, and reach an ending that will never progress further… But I am playing this game in real life. I can hit a bad end, reload the game, and fix my mistakes - The bad end still happened though. Once I have read it, it is part of my reality. It’s part of a game within my reality, but reality nonetheless. A made-up story can be as real as any other story.

I once wrote about a very similar topic for a series of online Newspaper articles a few years ago, in which I would ask the readers a series of questions about various subjects. I was young when I wrote them, so it’s not amazingly well written, but the meaning still stands~ http://pastebin.com/6Te7Adcb

Oh, and there’s a great VN by Nitroplus called ‘Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi’ that really hammers this home. It’s not translated in english, but here is the translated clip. Spoilers for the VN of course.


You can experience what the protagonist experiences as much as any other character. My experience as a protagonist will be different to another’s. They are the same story, but we are different people stepping into the shoes of that protagonist. Our past experiences will have an effect on what the protagonist experiences, because the protagonist’s experiences only exist when we acknowledge them. We all acknowledge things in our own ways.

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#5

I believe that any story: true or made up; first-person or third-person; can teach us things. Even if we may sometimes not entirely relate, if we are made aware of the meaning of the story, and somehow agree to it, then it can make an impact in our own lives.

But yeah, I think @AngelOfDeath720 was interested in discussing Deconstruction Theory in relation to my response, so hopefully he sees this topic :slight_smile:

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#6

Your right, it does, and thats not what I meant. Most things in this word exist in a gray area. Edited to clarify. Thanks

[quote=“Pepe, post:5, topic:414”]
But yeah, I think @AngelOfDeath720 was interested in discussing Deconstruction Theory in relation to my response, so hopefully he sees this topic
[/quote] Yeah I read a little bit about it when he mentioned it and I’m pretty interested in his opinions

#7

1.- No work of fiction is so bad that it doesn’t have something to teach. Even if only as an example of what not to do, either as a IRL experiencie or as a more technical side of fiction making

2.- Brain can’t really dstinguish an experience lived IRL than one that was only imagined. Vividly imagined, but imagined still. There’s a, exercise involving a lemon and you imagination somewhere. That means fiction can be meaningful if something rings with something you have lived, seen others live or knew from either a serious study on something or past fictions.

Having said that, in me, Little Busters! ringed with so many of such experiencies and knowledge that became, not only my favorite Key VN, but got a place among my favorite works of fiction. EVER. It’s like the character’s dilemmas, struggles, ways of thinking and acting were somehow describing some of my own, solving some doubts, leaving another ones as food for thought

Right now IRL I’m facing both Haruka’s struggle for finding a place in this world and to love and being loved; Mio’s dilemma about creating bonds with others while keeping being herself (Her favorite Tanka); and Riki’s need to become stronger in order to protect the ones he loves. and everytime I see myself thinking about the big questions, somewhere, a scene from LB! (Or Clannad, or Air, or even Tomoyo After) pops in my mind, as if those VNs were deeply ingrained in my brain and heart

3.- There’s a reason why all of us are here. And why @Aspirety built this place with his willpower, like Bioshock’s Andrew Ryan, if Ryan were a Key fan

tl;dr yes, they can be meaningful

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#8

Personally, I think I have some sort of complex with Key’s works in relation to this topic. I have experienced less than half of them, and yet I feel like I have a deep connection with ALL of them. For example, I’ve yet to read/watch Little Busters!, I don’t even really know any of the story except for like what would be in the game description, but I feel this incredible pull toward it (similar to how I feel about stuff I’ve read/seen like Clannad and Angel Beats). Its a REALLY odd feeling.

If I were to guess, I would say that this stems from Key’s - and especially Maeda’s - almost god-like ability to make their works all of those things I listed above. Almost anyone can find meaning somewhere in them because the characters are so relatable while at the same time creating new experiences and learning themselves. Key not only got me into anime and VNs, but also changed the way I want to live my life.

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#9

You sound like Angeal Hewley~
“No story is not worth hearing.”

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#10

I could literally go down the entire list of VNs that I’ve played and tell you how each and every one has changed my life. Not just how I think of things too; Daitoshokan, for example, changed my sleep schedule to the point where I will often go to sleep early just to wake up early and relax before my day starts.

Oh god, not Schrödinger… I’d rather not get into a superposition argument.

[quote=“Pepe, post:5, topic:414”]
But yeah, I think @AngelOfDeath720 was interested in discussing Deconstruction Theory in relation to my response, so hopefully he sees this topic
[/quote] “I dont think this thread is the right place to discuss it” doesn’t really mean “make another thread and bring it up there.” Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know if anyone else here even knows what Deconstruction Theory is, so I think a discussion would more than likely be me telling people what it is. (I might start a thread to do so if there’s enough interest, but at the moment I wouldn’t consider it a priority at the current moment)

[quote=“JDAM_Cid, post:7, topic:414”]
like Bioshock’s Andrew Ryan
[/quote] you are not helping my recent urge to play Bioshock…

#11

I didn’t think you meant that either, but somebody made it and here we are :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

fair enough. hmm… maybe I can find a way to make this into some sort of… community event? * pushes up imaginary glasses *

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#13

Huh, is that Schrödinger? I don’t feel like it is… That’s more a “two instances exist at the same time” kinda thing… right? (Never really payed attention in school, so I don’t know exactly~ ^^;)
It’s more like… when I acknowledge someone’s presence they become my reality. When I read or hear a story, it becomes my reality. Before that they don’t exist. It’s a “once you acknowledge something, it is given existence,” and I feel like Schrödinger is a different thing.

For example, if you didn’t know what Deconstruction Theory was, it wouldn’t exist until you see the name of the theory, or find out what the theory is~

This is more of a “If no one is there to hear the tree fall, did it happen?” but less stupid because it takes future experiences into factor~

oh, and, it’s not healthy to label things. :stuck_out_tongue:

#14

The cat is both alive and dead until you look at it; similar to how the story both exists and doesn’t exist until you make it your reality. idk, maybe that’s not what you were going for but that was the first thing that came to mind when I read it…

#15

Ah, I meant that the story doesn’t exist. There’s no paradox with this :stuck_out_tongue:
Nothing exists until you are aware of it, no matter if it is fiction or not~ Your memories of a story within a book will be treated the same way as your memories of your other experiences, and while we may make the conscious decision to differentiate between the two, it doesn’t make the stories labeled as “fiction” any less real,

#16

I am actually very interested in what you had to say about Deconstruction Theory. I had originally intended for this thread to be able to include that, but it seams that its morphed to cover a different area of discussion. If you feel that its too off topic here, I would love to hear about it in a new thread.

[quote=“Takafumi, post:15, topic:414”]
Your memories of a story within a book will be treated the same way as your memories of your other experiences, and while we may make the conscious decision to differentiate between the two, it doesn’t make the stories labeled as “fiction” any less real,
[/quote]On this note I would love to point everybody to two PBS Idea Channel Videos about fiction and existence “What is Fiction?” and “Does Fiction Exist?”.

Also, I open to it if anyone else is knowledgeable about and wants to discuss quantum mechanics in respect to what exists and what doesn’t, including Schrodinger and Many Worlds Interpretation.

#17

Quantum mechanics is horribly counterintuitive and not having the math in front of you can lead you down incorrect interpretations, or worse to pseudoscientific things like quantum mysticism. In the framework of quantum mechanics, objects take on properties of both a particle and a wave and are permitted to exist in an multitude of states (e.g. energy levels or spin states) and the measurement of that property forces these objects to take on a fixed value (wavefunction collapse).

The cat paradox asks where the boundary lies between the quantum and classical worlds lie. You place a cat in a box, with a radioactive source, and a detector that releases a vial of poison if the detector picks up a decay event. Because the events of radioactive decay are governed by quantum mechanics, the cat takes on the wavefunction like state of being half dead and half alive. The thing is that the cat paradox is intended to be absurd to illustrate how crazy quantum mechanics is. Everyone stops at the cat being both dead and alive because that’s the really cool part, but I feel that the resolutions to the paradox are more interesting.

  • An observer doesn’t have to be a person: The observation is made by the detector and not the person outside. The wavefunction collapse event happens well before the cat enters the equation. You no more say the cat is both dead and alive than if you had a cat of an undetermined state in a box without any quantum gizmos.

  • Many Worlds Interpretation: A commonly cited resolution is that the universe splits into multiple universes every time different possibilities exist. This may be the most exciting one and is a trope exploited in a lot of scifi, but it’s the one that I like the least because we have no physical evidence for other universes from either particle physics experiments or cosmological measurements. Some of the theories of everything predict the existence of multiple universes, but we have not found any evidence for them. Maybe we just haven’t built a large enough particle accelerator yet.

  • Quantum mechanics is a statistical theory and is incompatible with describing a single event. You cannot apply quantum mechanics to a single cat in a box, but it describes the possible outcomes of a large ensemble of cats in boxes with radioactive death traps.

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#18

Could we, perhaps, apply all of this to the whole ‘meaning in visual novels’ thing? o.o;

#19

I like to believe that since everything we know is a concept within our universe, it’d be impossible to comprehend anything before or outside of our universe. It’d be like getting a character in a VN to understand the world outside of it’s program.

I think people agree that it’s a far-fetched theory (as are most when it comes to the topic) but I think it sounds cool~

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#20

[quote=“Bizkitdoh, post:18, topic:414, full:true”]
Could we, perhaps, apply all of this to the whole ‘meaning in visual novels’ thing? o.o;
[/quote]Well, the cat applies to observation and existence, which @Takafumi brought up. It relates to the reader’s experience versus the protagonist’s, and how what we observe affects what we experience and vice versa.

Quantum mechanics, while confusing and unstable, presents the possibility that “fiction” is not just real in how it affects the observer’s existence, but also has its own physical existence. That of course would be an effect of what certain interpretations actually propose, and as @rune_devros said, its not proven yet.

The rest is just for fun :grin:

[quote=“rune_devros, post:17, topic:414”]
An observer doesn’t have to be a person
[/quote] Hmm, good point. I hadn’t really considered that before.

[quote=“rune_devros, post:17, topic:414”]
This may be the most exciting one and is a trope exploited in a lot of scifi, but it’s the one that I like the least because we have no physical evidence for other universes from either particle physics experiments or cosmological measurements.
[/quote]This is actually why I like it the most. And its not like there is proof of wavefunction collapse, its just what makes sense with our current “knowledge.”

[quote=“rune_devros, post:17, topic:414”]
Some of the theories of everything predict the existence of multiple universes, but we have not found any evidence for them.
[/quote] Bringing it back to visual novels again, @Bizkitdoh, this^ is part of what I like most about Kotomi’s route. In fact, I think the Illusionary Word is one of Clannad’s most interesting concepts. There’s even an OST called TOE, or Theory of Everything, which I think is very appropriate for this discussion.

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