Seeing Situations That Aren t Black and White

Seeing Situations That Aren't Black and White

This next hypothetical game contains another example of coming to grips with emotionally complex consequences of your actions, as well as another component of the First-Person Character Arc of Attaining Wisdom.

However, we'll also look at another technique: Seeing Situations That Aren't Black and White, and therefore require deep thought if you're to help those you care about. You'll see that the technique of Seeing Situations That Aren't Black or White is closely related to the previous discussion of Multiple Viewpoints.

When you move a player, one way or another, through Multiple Viewpoints on an emotionally charged subject, this can be done in a way so that the player gradually comes to see that things are more complex than they first appeared they aren't black or white. This is one of the fundamentals of wisdom: seeing the big picture.

Let's take a look how this could be used.

The game starts out with the player (you) in a situation that immediately looks clear cut. With no doubts that you are doing the right thing, you charge into the missions with a gung-ho Rambo-type of attitude about your rightness. To be a bit cliché, let's say you save a princess who has been kidnapped.

But then, as the game continues, it slowly becomes clear to you that you actually made the wrong assumptions to begin with. You discover that the princess is not all sweetness and light, and that the kidnappers were actually trying to put an end to her tyrannical reign.

And then, as the game goes on, further revelations change your view once again. You discover that the princess was forced into the position of ruling harshly because the kingdom she commanded needed to be delivered through a state of turmoil and unrest, which would have resulted in a full-out civil war if she hadn't ruled with an iron fist.

In fact, once you free the princess, civil war does erupt as parties that didn't want her ruling now rebel.

You would think, then, that by your returning the princess to her throne, all would be set right. But it isn't. The civil unrest is out of control and the princess over-reacts with violence, further fanning the flames.

It is now up to you to fix this mess. You need to take down several warlords who ignited the turmoil and are perpetuating it even though they have some legitimate issues and aren't merely evil. Finally, you need to dethrone the princess herself and defeat her elite guard unit.

In short, after a series of what I call Reveals, you will see that:

1. The simplistic view of the situation that you used as a basis of your early decisions actually created a much worse situation than what was there to begin with.

2. All sides of the conflict have legitimate issues, and there's no one easy answer to the problems the kingdom faces.

3. In an effort to do the right thing, you brought about more harm than good, and thus created a situation that now you must fix.^[3]

   ^[3] It should be mentioned that none of this story will have any emotional impact unless there is one or more people in the game who the player comes to really care about, and who are adversely affected by the degenerating condition in the kingdom brought about by the player's initial action in freeing the princess.

You, the player, will have grown wiser about the world as a result of the game. You will have learned that many issues in this game aren't black or white.