Quite frankly, I don’t watch a great deal of prime time television because the advent of reality shows seems to have sucked all screen writing talent out of Hollywood. Apparently, this ball of talent is hovering in a vortex just over Charlie Kaufman’s (a superb screen writer) house. (If you don’t know who Charlie Kaufman is, you should go Wikipedia him now. He’s ten kinds of brilliant.) So, with reality shows eating into what used to be my prime time vacation from the real world, it’s not startling that I now have only one show which I watch on a weekly basis. That show is LOST on ABC.

Now, I know not everyone believes LOST is brilliant. However, even if you cannot agree on the shows complexity of themes and excellent script, you have to give ABC some credit for having a show with a script! After all, I’m pretty sure that “screen writer” is a set of words that has been lost on most television studios for some time now. Why pay someone to write something when you can get people to act like idiots for free? Onward and upward!

What makes LOST an excellent show is its ability to extract sympathy from its audience for all of its characters. You’re never quite sure who you’re rooting for on the island, and how it will all come together – only that you can sympathize with how and why characters do the things they do. So, while one of the survivors of the Oceanic flight 815 crash, John Locke, seems to be destroying other’s plans to get off the island, you can almost sympathize with his actions because you pity him all of the difficulties he has endured in his lifetime. The same applies to every other character on the show. You may not agree with their actions entirely, but you certainly understand how they ended up in a position to commit themselves to their actions, good or bad.

This concept of “good and bad” became the catalyst for a train wreck of a thought, which, hopefully I can explain here and explain well.

Good and evil don’t really exist (with exception). We use these terms to classify what, in our minds, is the right choice and the wrong choice. For example, helping an elderly woman across the street falls into the good category, while kicking the old lady as she crosses the street falls into the evil category. God is good, Satan is evil. I believe that most of us operate on these terms – moving items and people into “good” or “evil” categories to simplify our interactions with the world. As I said, there is an exception to the good and evil rule. For the purpose of this exercise we’ll call it “extremes,” because people like Charles Manson and Ted Bundy seem to have been beaten with the evil stick. On the contrary, good and evil is not at the heart of the psychopath, who cannot make such distinctions because normal functioning and thoughts are impaired by mental illness. So, it would be unjust to classify these people as evil because they do not know what good and evil is and therefore, cannot live and function within the confines of this universal morality. They are, in and of themselves, an alien presence on Earth. So, instead of discussing the psychopath, we’re going to discuss those people that aren’t necessarily “mentally impaired” and who’s beliefs challenge our own moral systems – making them inherently “evil.” I would argue that with the right perception or set of lenses, nothing is in fact evil, but everything is “good.”

Take Andrew Ryan of Rapture (Bioshock) for instance. While his mental health is up for question, one can certainly sympathize with his proposal for an underwater city – where war and religion are no longer greater causes for human suffering. Unfortunately for Ryan, his underwater city became equally as corrupt as those civilizations he was trying to leave above the water. Although, this appears to be no great fault of his own, but the fault of the human condition. People were lustful and greedy, as is illustrated beautifully by the Big Daddy’s protection of the “Little Sister” from adam junkies – which, in any comparison should most closely resemble our very own drug junkies. Ever seen anyone on crystal meth? Near as I can tell, they are about as creepy looking as the crazed adam junkies that run rampant in Rapture. When you do finally confront Andrew Ryan, you get the sense he is of a healthier mental state than the thousands of other people you have all ready bumped into. Ryan’s greatest fault is that he is trying to protect his beloved city, despite the fact that the city is no longer under his control. His vision for a utopian society has crumbled around him, and he’s too caught up in his vision of greatness to simply hand over the key to the city to your character. You have to pity him. Still, he is the enemy because he has created a Frankenstein of a mess, and the only way to end this appropriately is to dispose of his ill-conceived visions.

But, just as easily as this game’s story and character arc revolved around your “disposing” of Andrew Ryan and taking over the city of Rapture, you could have played Andrew Ryan himself. You could have started this game as a visionary, and then had to protect yourself from the crazed adam junkies. And Fontaine? Well, he’s the BIGGEST adam junkie of all (and also, a psychopath – which makes him ineligible for the “evil” award), so you still have a strong protagonist – although the story is not nearly as convoluted. Then, your former character arrives on the scene, and you have to do everything you can to protect yourself and your vision from a most untimely death. As your previous character comes nearer and nearer, you are forced to take alternate routes and explore the levels with the same urgency as before. Perhaps Ryan is now the one to save the “Little Sisters” and your greatest decision at the end of the game is to blow you and your city belly up to prevent further degradation, or to fight off your approaching enemy and save the city for the time being.

The point of these two explanations is to provide you with an alternative perception. Hopefully, you can see how it is easier to sympathize with a cause and with a fight when you have been thrust into a game on a “chosen” side. You could, just as easily, have been one of the Hunters or Elites in Halo as you were the Master Chief. You could have been fighting to protect your homeland and religious icon from the thousands of invaders and this probably would have been an equally entertaining story. My argument is this, there is always a protagonist, always someone who seems “evil” so that the story progresses and obstacles are overcome. But, your actions, whether they be in life or in a video game, are equally as “good” or “evil” as those of someone else. People do what they can with what they are given. If this is true, than all people are trying to do is be “good” to themselves and “good” to their cause, which inherently means there is an absence of evil and only good. For example, Darth Vader’s character in the third episode of Star Wars was only doing what he thought was right and “good” for everyone. There were, of course, people that disagreed with him. Isn’t it funny how our own perceptions of right and wrong and good and bad can paint the whole world in hues of black and white – with little color or insight into the hardships and trials of someone else. We’re all only as good as we believe ourselves to be. Only in the eyes of someone else does our evil shine through.

Perhaps this leads me to an idea for future game development? This notion of choice and perception was best explored in the game Indigo Prophecy (Xbox, Playstation2, and PC), which I would argue is one of the most underrated games of all time. The game forces you to play as a suspected murderer and the cops who are chasing him. It’s an interesting coalescence of perception and story, which makes you feel sympathetic for all of the parties involved. But, what if instead of simply merging story lines, you were given a choice as to which side of the story you wanted to play. Obviously, this couldn’t be done for every game on the market. But, what if, instead of walking in to your game store and only being able to pick up the “Master Chief” version of Halo, you were able to walk in and pick up the “Covenant” version of Halo. Now THAT is a game I want to play.

Perception is nine-tenths of the law and evil is a misnomer.

Tags: ABC, Andrew Ryan, Charlie Kaufman, choice, evil, Hollywood, John Locke, LOST, Oceanic, Rapture, Video Games, Wikipedia