11 KiB
Thoughts on "A Link to the Past"
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Author: u/zedMinusMinus *
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URL: http://reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=march-11-2015
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Score: 17
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Created: 2015-03-14T05:34:50
Post:
Comments:
u/None [+9] (45 minutes later)
Nah, plainly you need to make the player sit through a sequence of moral philosophy classes, and then dispense the Pendants iff the player can write a good final essay justifying a realist stance on virtue ethics.
u/rumblestiltsken [+9] (6 hours later)
So ... I'm not gonna claim LoZ all makes total sense, but for game thematics the first dungeons aren't awful.
In the Eastern Palace, Link must be able to face down a horde of knights without his sword and shield, instead relying on his bow as the enemy charges towards him in formation. For this he receives the pendant of courage.
In the Desert Palace he cannot progress unless he can lift boulders, and at the end of the dungeon he receives the pendant of power.
At the Tower of Hera he uses the Moon Pearl to retain his human form, after being shown his "True Self", a pink bunny rabbit. After this ordeal he receives the pendant of wisdom.
I'm pretty happy with that video game logic, myself.
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (13 hours later)
I'm not overly familiar with the Zelda games, so is the pendant of power actually about physical power?
Because the other two seem like virtues, and I can see how those virtues are legitimately demonstrated in those tests, but unless "power" is about physical power, I don't see how the boulders relate to that at all. And if it is all about physical power, how is that a moral virtue?
u/None [+7] (a day later)
They aren't moral tests. They're physical, intellectual, and emotional tests. The moral test comes when you try to lift the Master Sword. And if you are evil, it obliterates you.
u/rumblestiltsken [+2] (15 hours later)
The item that let's link lift boulders is called the glove of power... So, yeah. In world power can mean physical strength.
Why do they have to be moral virtues? Surely the weilder of the master sword must be strong enough to defeat their enemies?
At least, I would have that as a prerequisite.
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (16 hours later)
They don't have to. Like I said, I'm not very familiar with the world, so I assumed from the other two pendants that they were about moral virtues.
EDIT: Or at least virtues beyond "I can pick up big stick. I can break bad man's head with big stick now."
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (23 hours later)
So, this tends to vary with the Legend of Zelda games, but what it comes down to is that there are three gods - one for Wisdom, one for Power, and one for Courage. The Triforce isn't really about "good" or "bad" at all, it's just about that dynamic.
What typically ends up happening is that the three pieces of the Triforce are split between three people, and those people are always some form of Link (the protagonist) who gets the Triforce of Courage, Zelda (the princess and sometimes deuteragonist) who gets the Triforce of Wisdom, and Ganondorf (the villain) who gets the Triforce of Power.
So you're totally right that power isn't really about good and evil - and typically, the villain is the one that gets the power part of it, because power is Ganondorf's most developed attribute. Power isn't a moral virtue, and the games don't imply that it's one.
u/ishaan123 [+7] Sidebar Contestant (an hour later)
I think this is Halo effect - "Those of great skill and intelligence are generally also wise and worthy people" is a heuristic most of humanity lives by. That's why people keep bandying Einstein's quotes. People mistakenly think that because he was smart, his opinion holds more weight for everything in general, even morality.
Truth be told, it's not a terrible heuristic. We like writing genius sociopaths into fiction, but in real life they aren't incredibly common, and the brain abnormalities leading to abnormal morality judgement usually comes with cognitive deficits as well. (Not to mention, the bulk of "evil" misdeeds are probably more irrational behavior than they are a result of abnormal moral judgement.) That said, there are plenty of people who are both smart and morally iffy, and power does seem to have a relationship with questionable morality.
So...what would you do, if you wanted to seal something powerful away for generations after your death, and you did want it to be rediscovered eventually, but only by the wise and good and worthy?
u/ArmokGoB [+13] (2 hours later)
Huh, this question actually turns really interesting, if you take it seriously. Suppose you do have the resources to build this type of protective dungeon full of magic puzzles, but that any social institutions are unlikely to survive. Sort of a related problem space to what they are planing with scaring people in 10 000 years away form nuclear waste.
One idea I come up with, is set up instructions and some lesser repeatable reward for some evil behavior, like human sacrifice. Or maybe some tool that is useful for only selfish purposes. Then the actual thing you were trying to hide i only given to the one who disrupts/destroys these evil things.
u/OffColorCommentary [+8] (5 hours later)
Your dungeon could include the ghost of a previous adventurer - actually a pre-built part of the puzzle and not a real ghost (if such things exist). How you treat the ghost could have some nuanced kindness and morality checks to it.
Depending on the nature of what's hidden in the dungeon, plain old Zelda-style puzzles built around cognitive biases might actually be a good idea. However good and kind someone is, everyone can make mistakes, and if I'm going to hand them an artifact of immense power I'd feel safer knowing they're free of, say, the Positive Bias. The more you cross off the list the less likely they are to do something catastrophic. And the more of these hoops they have to jump through, the more they'll probably realize you had a specific concern here.
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (13 hours later)
You know, that'd be an interesting twist: Instead of trying for tests which are designed to keep the artifact out of the hands of evil people, you try for tests which are designed to keep the artifact out of the hands of somebody too stupid to realize that [insert catastrophe] would be bad for zemself, too.
Yeah, it might get into the hands of a world conqueror, but if you did it right then that world conqueror is at least smart enough to keep the world running.
(and maybe even smart enough to see how long-term selfishness can look remarkably like a given amount of selflessness, since happy citizens are productive, &c &c).
u/derefr [+1] (7 days later)
This was basically the plot of the Mistborn series, no?
u/callmebrotherg [+1] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (7 days later)
I have absolutely no idea. All I know about Mistborn is that it is a series of books. I think that it is by Brandon Sanderson, but without looking I wouldn't actually know for sure.
So I definitely don't know if this is anything that was in Mistborn.
u/derefr [+2] (13 hours later)
Reminds me of the Thor's Hammer and later Glastonbury Tor puzzle-dungeons in Stargate SG-1. They were also keyed against some biometrics to prevent known-nonfriendly intelligences from raiding them, though.
u/ishaan123 [+1] Sidebar Contestant (6 days later)
But then you yourself become morally suspect, for intentionally incentivizing human sacrifice.
My test of goodness as independent from skill would probably be one of altruistic sacrifice. To pass the test, the seeker must sacrifice something they care about - perhaps an arm or something - to save another person. (Or at least, they must believe that someone is really at risk and they are sacrificing something)
There shouldn't be any incentive to save the person other than the person being saved - as far as the seeker knows, no one will know if they do not do the sacrifice and let the person die, and there's no reward waiting in the end.
u/linkhyrule5 [+5] (4 hours later)
[tongue in cheek] I would first do all the hard work of creating a safe wish-granting device that actually did what the wisher meant, and then tell it to find the most noble and courageous person in the land.
And then it's just a matter of giving him the combat experience and puzzle-solving ability (and experience in general) required to triumph.
(but no seriously the Triforce does most of the heavy lifting.)
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (17 hours later)
This is the main spoiler/plot twist behind
Sorry, but if I mentioned the title uncovered here, it would be obvious why right before you reach the ending the book anyway.
u/derefr [+10] (13 hours later)
"DRM Dungeons" (places where the keys are hidden alongside the locks) seemingly only serve to slow looters down, sure. But I don't think they're meant to be be free-standing.
Instead, I always believed that, somewhat like an Indiana Jones movie, these were mostly temples in the literal sense—places that were guarded by groups of warrior-priests trained in combat, trap construction, monster husbandry, etc.
The dungeon itself is meant to be, effectively, a lock: the people who have the key can get in, while the people who don't either choose an easier target, or sit there picking it for long enough that the rightful owners can be alerted, arrive, and dispense with them. Which does happen for some dungeons!
In others, though, the rightful owners are long-dead. The dungeon wasn't actually designed to keep people out forever without its active maintainers. The maintainers were required to reset and refill the traps, breed and feed the monsters, patrol the halls, keep the keys on their persons somewhere that isn't within the dungeon, etc. Without them, it's just a leftover set of decaying traps that have yet to wear out or run out of charges. These sort of "dungeon ruins" make perfect sense as DRM dungeons.
By analogy, imagine an abandoned prison complex. The cell doors are locked, but there are keys to them just left hanging on a hook in the guard tower. It would look, if you thought this was a place purposefully constructed to exactly this plan, that they had simply intended to have would-be attackers scale the guard tower, take the keys, and then use them to get further inside. That seems like a DRM dungeon. And yet, it was never a dungeon at all. When it was an actively-inhabited installation, you'd never have managed to scale the guard tower; you'd have been shot. The keys would be on a guard with another guard watching their backs and ready to alert a whole squadron. Etc.
u/DCarrier [+2] (a day later)
The trope they're referring to is Only Smart People May Pass.