Death To Video Games

Do you see the picture? That is Death holding the only major superhero to ever really die. Captain Marvel.

Death isn’t something we really get to grapple with in the kingdom of nerd. I mean think about it, you die in a game you respawn, or have to play a level over again. Magneto dies in X-men but he’s back in a few months leading another rebellion. Obi-wan died in Star Wars, only to return in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Same goes with TV shows, I mean even Buffy died twice. It seems here in our kingdom nobody really dies. And it’s a pretty sweet deal for those characters.

I’m not going to go into a big shpeal on how our constant encounter with death has desensitized us. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t, I can only speak for myself and it’s not particularly interesting.

I do however think that so much killing of our characters we know and love has declifhangered us. I mean with all the killing of the characters we like, only to have them come back next week, or next month really makes you skeptical that actual death in the fantasy realm is impossible. Writers build up on deaths, weeks they tell you, hint to you that terrible things are going to happen. You wait and watch/read and then it happens. Your favorite character dies. Maybe you cry. Maybe it takes a few installments to really set in, but it happened. And you can’t believe it. And just when you’ve moved on they’re back.

The half assed excuse for why they are alive is laid out on the table, and you don’t like it because it sounds stupid, but you accept it because your character is back… be it Colossus (they switched bodies at the last second), Phoenix (the Phoenix never dies it is in her forever), Jack Bauer (faked it to fool the govt.)… Superman even (state of hibernation).

In video games its worse. Though usually with the villains. How many times do we have to fight the same ones over and over? Shouldn’t they have died by now? … its usually the doctors. Dr. Wiley, Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Cortex…

But how much of that can we take? Eventually we all will just immediately begin to expect all characters to return from the dead. I know I am near that point. A character on the best show on television just “died.” But she’s not dead. She’ll be back. I don’t believe all the hype that lead to her death. Just like I didn’t believe it when Hawkeye died… both times.

There is a limit, good sirs and madams, and I have been pushed beyond it.