Introduction
[Music]
his soul was mad being alone in the wilderness
it had looked within itself and by heavens i tell you it had gone mad
he struggled with himself too i saw it
i heard it i saw the inconceivable mystery of a
soul that knew no restraint no faith
and no fear yet struggling blindly with itself
he cried in a whisper at some image at some vision
he cried out twice a cry that was no more than a breath
the horror the horror
[Music]
heart of darkness is a novel written by joseph conrad in 1899 about a fictional
englishman named charles marlow who recounts his voyage into the depths of an african colony and the increasing
insanity savagery and ultimately death that appears to befall the white
pioneers and ivory hunters that dare enter it it is a canonical extensively researched
text that most modern post-colonial academia has come to interpret as a
failed attempt at anti-colonial literature a work of art that may very well intend
to condemn colonialism yet relies heavily on the very same themes and rhetoric that was at the time used to
legitimize the colonialist practice that it was supposedly criticizing
postcolonial criticism of the text goes back as far as the movement itself with nigerian author chinua achebes an image
of africa in 1977 heart of darkness projects the image of
africa as the other world the antithesis of europe and therefore of civilization
a place where a man's intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by
triumphant bestiality western scholars then took up this new
viewpoint and expanded on it in one such article from 1985
patrick brandlinger writes heart of darkness offers a powerful
critique of at least certain manifestations of imperialism and racism at the same time that it presents that
critique in ways that can only be characterized as both imperialist and racist
conrad portrays the moral bankruptcy of imperialism by showing european actions
to be no better than african savagery his version of evil is going native in
short evil is african in conrad's story if it is european that's because some
number of white men in the heart of darkness behave like africans
the book is therefore understood to enshrine a set of colonialist concepts that arguably still dominate if in a
more subtle form our contemporary western discourse on not only africa
itself but whatever we perceive consciously or subconsciously as the
uncivilized other its probably most famous cinematic adaptation is the movie apocalypse now
an anti-vietnam war film ostensibly criticizing the barbaric atrocities
committed by the americans against the native population by depicting the native population as barbarians that
commit atrocities and merely corrupted the americans into doing the same
as a result of its harmful implications the story has naturally fallen out of fashion and modern retellings have
become increasingly rare as they struggle to simultaneously uphold and subvert the core features of the
original delving straight into the heart of darkness 47 good luck
there have been several recent attempts across all forms of storytelling media each with their own approach to
recontextualizing heart of darkness for a modern reader viewer or player but none are as blatant
about the relation to their source material as ubisoft's 2008 sequel to the
original far cry not only is this second entry in the franchise set in africa but the game
stages its climax in a fictional swampland literally called heart of
darkness seeing as the game boldly stuck with the original setting of africa
how does it deviate from its reference material and where on the spectrum between
revisionism and perpetuation of heart of darkness's rhetoric can it be located
now let me say this preemptively this video will dive into topics of imperialism
neocolonialism and chiefly racism if you have never engaged with literary
studies before welcome you might be surprised to hear that you can
many would even say should interpret a cultural artifact solely based on its content and socio-cultural context alone
now by contrast some viewers might at times feel the urge to tell me that i am over interpreting that this is not what
the developers were thinking when they created this game and that they didn't intend any of this to which i
would reply yes yes they likely did not
anyway this is also a trigger warning i will touch upon very racist colonialist
descriptions and depictions of non-white people the topic of civilian massacres
both fictional and real as well as death in general however i will not display
any photo imagery of dead or wounded people video structure and plot summaries
to determine the most viable points of comparison between the two texts and then structure the video around them we
must first get an overview over what these texts actually contain which
requires a quick rundown of the plots of both the novel and the game in addition a brief postcolonial
analysis of heart of darkness will highlight the angle that i will adopt to analyze the game later on
heart of darkness in heart of darkness protagonist marlow
recounts his perilous journey to the dark continent his younger self fascinated with
exploration and discovery seizes the opportunity to sign with an ivory trading company and sails to africa to
replace one of their captains who got killed by the natives upon arrival marlow is immediately
struck by the horrors of the land mass graves of diseased native workers a
tropical illness that plagues the company's stations and a madness and
desire for violence and infighting that appears to have befallen even the most high ranking officers along with a
curious decline in overall sanity here is just an excerpt from one of the
first officers marlow meets at the central station the business entrusted to this fellow
was the making of bricks so i had been informed but there wasn't a fragment of a brick anywhere in the
station and he had been there more than a year waiting
it seems he could not make bricks without something i don't know what straw maybe
anyway it could not be found there and as it was not likely to be sent from europe it did not appear clear to me
what he was waiting for an act of special creation perhaps
however they were all waiting all the 16 or 20 pilgrims of them for
something though the only thing that ever came to them was disease as far as i could see
the steamer that marlow was supposed to helm is in disrepair and the station lacks the necessary tools to fix it
while waiting several months for the materials to arrive he learns of a mysterious station master named kurtz
who dwells deep in the jungle and apparently produces more ivory than all
other stations together supposedly because he has adopted the violent and horrifying customs of the
natives who hailed him as their divine leader however rumor goes he is terribly ill
and his station might soon be lost once the steamer is ready marlo and his
crew therefore depart for kurtz's camp but the deeper into the darkness of the jungle they penetrate the more
terrifying and maddening their encounters grow many succumb to fear starvation illness
and even native war parties when marlow finally reaches kurtz he
finds him a confused and dying man in command of belligerent but loyal almost
devout natives with his final words kurtz bestows upon marlow the conclusion to his journey
into the darkness that broke him the horror
the horror himself very ill by this point marlow
barely escapes africa and returns to europe safe but forever changed
heart of darkness attempts to establish an anti-colonialist message but its main
tool in order to achieve this is to turn its other ring up to 11. you see
according to conrad colonialism isn't wrong because it is built on the concept
of portraying its victims as subhumans in order to legitimize the taking of their lives land and resources no it is
wrong because africa is wrong its hostile nature and savage subhuman
inhabitants are simply incompatible with civilized westerners
instead of criticizing the inherent goals of colonialism which protagonist marlow even praises as redeeming it
places the blame for the atrocities committed in its name squarely on some sort of growing insanity and sickness
among the colonizers due to the continued exposure to africa and africans
this rhetoric essentially hails the exploits of colonialism while providing an easy excuse for its atrocities
torture and genocide was never our intent it was the place we went to that
corrupted us into the monsters we became throughout the book the natives both
allies and enemies are repeatedly portrayed as animal-like creatures capable of terrible acts and rituals
against the influence of which the colonizers must but inevitably fail to protect themselves
one of the main takeaways from the book is that the black natives of africa represent man at the beginning of time
irrational at their core while the white colonizers have progressed to a state of
reason the white male rational subject does however still have the remnants of this
past man in himself and is therefore susceptible to its corrupting influence
since no one is able to withstand this deep-seated fascination with primal savagery the only way to survive africa
is to return home as quickly as possible the nationalist implications are clear
the superior whites belong to europe the inferior blacks belong to africa and
they must not intermingle the greed for ivory is deplorable but it
is only in combination with africa that it turns good-hearted white men into
insane violent animals the most successful ivory poacher of the book is after all also the one that
spent the most time among the natives adopted their rituals and became their
revered leader and who committed the worst atrocities violence is therefore no longer linked
to the colonizers but the corrupting influence of the violent natives and their antagonistic personified homeland
of africa so this is what we're up against this is what far cry 2 wants to see itself
compared to so let's do exactly that to break a man's will to break his
spirit you have to break his mind men have this idea that we can fight with dignity that is a proper way to
kill someone we needed to endure the bloody horror of murder you must destroy that idea show them what a messy
terrible thing it is to kill a man and then show them that you relish in it destroy the preconceptions of what a man
is and you become their personal monster when they fear you you become stronger
you become better but let's never forget it's a display it's a posture like a
lion's roar or a gorilla thumping at his chest if you lose yourself in the display if
you succumb to the horror then you become the monster you become reduced
not more than a man but less and it can be fatal
this was a recording from one of far cry 2's main characters nicknamed the jackal
a mysterious and manipulative arms dealer who after spending years in africa has progressively succumbed to
the savagery of the very wars he helped start or reignite a mercenary for hire the protagonist is
sent in to locate and eliminate him in order to put an end to his destabilizing influence over the region and help
restore order upon arrival in the unnamed country the assassin is immediately confronted with
the reality of the situation two warring factions have seized control of the war-torn state and the economy
and infrastructure aren't shambled private militia many of them foreigners to the land are aiding the native
warlords in their efforts to seize power and hunt down the fleeing civilian
population before he even sets foot on the ground however the protagonist contracts a
severe case of malaria
malaria malaria [Music]
the protagonist contracts a severe case of malaria and falls unconscious before
awaking in the capital in the midst of a chaotic outbreak of violence between the two militia groups orchestrated by the
jekyll himself he barely escapes with his life and in order to survive must now earn a
reputation among the warlords by doing their bidding for payments of diamonds
inching ever closer to a lead on the jackal's whereabouts over the course of his journey he meets
and is in turn shaped by bloodthirsty but childish warlords hopelessly naive
civilians and scheming foreign mercenaries that are losing their grip on reality
himself slowly descending into the madness that appears to have taken hold of the country the protagonist soon sees
himself commit the same crimes and atrocities he intended to prevent the jackal from committing
actively preventing peace in order to keep the warlords occupied and the diamonds flowing
differences between the two factions between good and evil human and inhuman
become blurry and soon there is no more end to justify the means
only violence for its own sake when the factions eventually join forces
to capture and kill all dissidents to their tyrannical rule together the jackal and his assassin determined that
the actual cause for the horrors of this place is the place itself
and that in order to save its civilian population from a massacre the entire
corrupted rest of the country must be exterminated including the two of them
both suffering from the final stages of their fatal diseases they head into the
heart of darkness where the two factions have now set up their united headquarters to eliminate all their
soldiers officers and leaders among them are the protagonists former
mercenary friends who betray him over a briefcase full of diamonds and are
therefore killed as well the jackal and the protagonist then coordinate a final plan whereby one
delivers the briefcase to the civilians at the border to pay for their escape while the other detonates the past
behind them to cut off access to the country for good before ultimately succumbing to his
tropical disease the protagonist commits suicide although it remains unclear whether the
jackal makes good on his promise to do the same with these two plot summaries out of the
way it is easy to spot the core themes shared by both texts in order to compare them to one another
the video structure will therefore follow the main stages along this shared journey that the main characters of both
the game and the book undergo first they are confronted with the other
as they are appalled by it they seek to control it in trying to control it they engage with
and start to adopt the behavior of the other thus entering the threshold
once they have crossed this line their corruption cannot be reversed they
have become the other and must therefore die
The Other
we penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness it was very quiet there
we could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance
but suddenly as we struggled round the bend there would be a burst of yells a whirl
of black limbs a mass of hands clapping of feet stamping
of bodies swaying of eyes rolling the prehistoric man
was cursing us praying to us welcoming us
who could tell we glided past like phantoms
wandering and secretly appalled as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a
madhouse we could not understand because we were too far
and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of first ages
of those ages that are gone leaving hardly a sign
and no memories at the core of heart of darkness lies
the contrast between the familiar and the other marlow representing the familiar pierces
into the heart of the dark continent exposed to the incomprehensible
disgusting and most importantly alluring sights sounds and beings that dwell
within typical for the literature of its time it conveys these categories as an
essentialist binary opposition the book tells us that at the center of
africa lies darkness the unknown and danger the white pioneer must penetrate
into that darkness with a beacon of civilization and bring enlightenment to its black
natives the inflictions of africa on the minds of the white colonizers are symbolized
by the literal corruption of their bodies tropical diseases that appear to afflict nearly every outsider that
enters it the west gives life africa means death
this colonialist rhetoric is based upon the concept of the west as the paragon
of culture whereas africa represents pure nature which absolves the west from any guild
of exterminating cultures and pillaging the resources of another civilization
since the africans have no culture they are therefore part of nature
of the primitive wilderness they are the land they do not work it
and therefore they do not own it which leaves it ripe for the taking in order to legitimize the means by
which the land is then taken the west is considered to represent order and sanity
while africa symbolizes chaos and insanity which makes it all the easier
to blame africa for violence while the west is perceived as merely reacting to
the impulsive aggressions of the supposed savages from a default position of peaceful intentions
the final opposition is what anse bloch calls un gleicheitkeit or
non-synchronicity africa and the orient along with their inhabitants are contained in a bubble of
eternal past while the west represents the present progress and history
this dichotomy allows for a strict hierarchy of knowledge in granting power
to the westerners that is inaccessible to africans turning them into mere
children who must be aided but who are excluded from ever becoming adults like
their colonizer parents a rhetoric often used by colonizing nations throughout history to legitimize
their authority and superiority while subdued natives are considered
childlike buffoons those capable of violence are framed as barbarians and cannibals more animal
than men more inhuman than human this contrast between the familiar and
the other and the fear of a third space that links
the two and allows a civilized white man to drift off and become the inhuman
savage he was meant to control represents the preferred reading of heart of darkness at the time of its
publishing and the main ideology that it communicates it tells us that if the natives are in
fact human and they represent our past their perceived savagery is part of us
too it lies at the primal core of our humanity and can erupt when seduced by the other
we are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster but there
there you could look at a thing monstrous and free
it was unearthly and the men were no they were not inhuman
well you know that was the worst of it this suspicion of their not being
inhuman they howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces but what thrilled you
was just the thought of their humanity like yours the thought of your remote kinship with
this wild and passionate uproar africa journey to the center of the
earth heart of darkness and far cry 2 never specify the concrete area within africa
where their narratives take place heart of darkness doesn't need to because to its colonialist readership
africa did not consist of any countries just colonies and far cry 2 doesn't want
to because it would undermine its focus on the westerners experience to whom all of
africa can be sufficiently summarized under one name without losing any
details that would be relevant to the rhetoric that the game employs since the western lens does not see any
differentiation within africa it would be an unnecessary risk to single out and
name an arbitrary country whose government might then threaten a lawsuit against the publisher for the portrayal
of their country as an anarchic fever dream but don't worry ubisoft know what
they're doing on that front when we start in the game and when we want this game to take place in the reality
it's very important for us to go there to study to see the people to find the
landscape ourselves we came back with 15 000 a photo 15 hours of video of
interview of footage of everything it was a amazing to be able to do that and
amazing to be able to recreate that after it took us four years
if one had to pinpoint it heart of darkness was most likely inspired by
impressions of the congo while far cry 2's references to real world ethnicities
such as the traditional architecture of the dogon people suggest that the game takes place in southern mali
however portraying the natives patriotism for a specific african country would still appear
inconsequential by postcolonial standards today's borders were after all drawn
according to the foreign economic and military interests of western imperialism rather than the actual
ethnic and cultural affiliations of the indigenous population this post-colonial complexity highlights
the gravity of the game's decision to instead default to the same colonialist
understanding of africa as the one found in its 120 year old source material
both settings are defined as the heart of darkness as the very core and
essential representation of the other and that other is africa
this allows for the two protagonists metaphorical journeys not only to the
center of a continent but the supposed primitive core of their own humanity
the best way i can explain it to you is by saying that for a second or two i felt as though instead of going to the
center of a continent i were about to set off for the center
of the earth in the game this does lead to some
awkward dialogue in which natives talk about the affection for their country
without ever naming the country and instead basing their cultural identity
on the entirety of the african continent this is my last war for better for wars
i am african this is my home this is my house my country my continent you are a
scavenger and a trespasser if marlow's first experiences on the steamer and at
the outer stations introduced the beginning of the end of civilization
so must far cry 2's opening instead of heart of darkness's outposts
with ever rising degrees of madness the game starts with a linear taxi ride in
which the country's crisis is roughly explained but also more importantly
severely downplayed to heighten the effect of otherness we learn that militarized factions have
taken hold but also that it's okay the kid to themselves most of
the time a car wreckage on the side of the road don't let this concern you just boys
heading off steam right you remember and the guard post militia don't like
the propaganda spewing radio dj maybe his music choices who knows
not only are we surrounded by unfamiliar sights but our first native contact does
not seem to perceive them the way we do implying that survival in this
irrational place requires adopting an irrational mindset the protagonist's irritating disconnect
from the cab driver's embellished portrayal of reality and inhumanly calm
reaction to apparent danger is fully in line with heart of darkness's rendering of irrationally
apathetic behavior among the indigenous population as for example with this depiction of
allied natives in reaction to what appears to be cannibal war cries from the dark thicket
it was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of
the black fellows of our crew the whites of course greatly discomposed had
besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row
the others had an alert naturally interested expression but their faces
were essentially quiet even those of the one or two who grinned
several exchanged short grunting phrases which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction
this stark contrast between the familiar and the other is further established
when we as the protagonist are repeatedly referred to as a foreigner
first by the cab driver and again by our first contact shortly
after the intro i hear the apr's got a hostage in there some foreign national like you while the game allows the
player to choose from an array of different backgrounds every protagonist option is that of a foreigner all of the
men and most of them white on top of that those from the list that are not chosen
can later be encountered in the game world as potential allies to the protagonist
which further exposes his specific identity as ultimately irrelevant what
matters is that he is always an outsider because only then
does he stand in direct opposition to africa as the essential other
which allows the plot to take place to begin with denying the past
the axiom of african incompetence opposite the protagonist the game's
primary human manifestation of the other are the faction leaders with whom the
protagonist must interact to progress the story and who are responsible for the majority of ludic and narrative
content in the form of missions and dialogue their portrayal therefore embodies how
the game communicates its concept of africa and how it differs from the
identity of the west far cry 2 depicts two approaches to post-colonial african
politics on the one hand we have the ufl short for united front for liberation
and labor that represents a working-class communist ideology focused
on nationalizing the means of production like the often mentioned mining business the ufl has a great leader in addie
bantue who worked with the mining union to secure the rights 40 people he stood up to the men in charge he did not allow
the president of the mind to continue to destroy the lies of the workers the foreign president bantui single-handedly
chased the blood-sucking foreign parasites out of the business he gave the mind and the wealth back to the
rightful owners the people a lot of gold and that gold comes from our minds it belongs to us
sure man you tell him when you fight for the front you fight for the workers the people who built this country up brick
by brick the people who saw the clothes you wear on your back on the other we have the
apr short for alliance for popular resistance following a path of tradition
and reinstating a pre-colonial monarchy you know this fubar country used to have a king placed back and he brought us
gold with him all of it protected by those stupid apr boys but we are selling fresh water to our neighbors the ufl
will not profit at the expense of our people my people
both factions are however ultimately illustrated as two sides of the same
corrupt coin both longing for power more than for peace the ufl secretly betray their own
ideology by promising riches to their supporters that the country does not actually have taimok was a sham there
are no diamonds bantuy tells the soldiers they will be rich all the diamonds they want if they just stay with him he's a liar he always has been
while their leaders live luxurious lives in their ivory towers his people starve
in the street and he buys gold-plated dishes it's obscene in the same vein the aprs monarchs and their henchmen reveal
themselves to be power hungry i am your king detached is worthless always has been no
kind of father for his country he abandoned it a long time ago and largely indifferent elitists we talk to
everybody apr and ufl has always played both ends against the middle that is why he has the gold and we have this war
real-life examples that most resemble the in-game depictions are possibly the
marxist revolutionary thomas sankara of burkina faso and the infamously decadent
king swati iii of esswatini although even these extremes do not come close to
the universally hypocritical caricatures found in the game the native leaders are essentially
portrayed as wide-eyed idealists that are blind to their own evil and all of
them are evil in everything they do otherwise reputable goals such as
economic independence on the one hand and political accountability on the other
are thus ridiculed and demonized entirely what did you say you want to defend
africa against foreign economic exploitation and land grabbing well that's what a genocidal communist
authoritarian would say you want to reform the outdated and unfitting political system implemented
by the colonial powers to more closely resemble the traditional and social structures of the native people
befitting of a decadent uncaring elitist one of the most quoted aspirations in
the game expressed by both factions is that of uniting africa to stand as one
peaceful continent independent from foreign interference this is our struggle in africa is for africans we do
not need outside involvement this will unite us one africa all africa will follow this example
led by your harmful sufferings however
by putting this admirable pan-african goal often uttered in the actual african
postcolonial struggle into the mouths of fictional consistently naive tyrants
the game paints it as a naive concept that is therefore not only unachievable
but actually the cause for the tyranny and war that plagued the country
to add to the naivete all leaders appear to genuinely believe in the universal
good that their actions will bring to all people no matter how violent and obviously
malicious they are i've decided to eliminate kwasi and asset our control in the north i will be the voice of
stability and peace i would like you to attack this ride to sheila and silence their station i hope we'll consider our
cause the lies this mental are helping no one and this is when we take control of this conflict and bring under
stability here you know how to work with explosives we need a man to shut down a
large pipeline of course we would never be involved in such a thing it must be the work of a free agent but this is what time
suffering is unavoidable there it is for a greater good for a stronger africa by contrast the aid who was always a
foreigner is usually portrayed as someone who sees the bigger picture and is aware of the hypocrisy on display but
plays along to get paid the major and i were just discussing what to do about the radio announcer propaganda machine
in this country is quite impressive really it is all lies yes of course when it's the ufl broadcasting
no more money no more pmc well then keep the two cuts coming and you won't have a problem yes of course that is what matters not the work not the effort to
build a strong africa oh is that what you're doing didn't realize china there's pictures of these children in
our camps dying with dysentery that's very sad you know when people see these pictures it'll break their hearts
they'll have to send money to help none of it will ever get those pulse swords it will eventually but it has to come to
us first we know how to handle it yeah sure you do they are the adult in the room while the
natives are presented like squabbling kids fighting over a toy apr is the [ __ ]
now thanks to you yeah and thanks to me they'll work with me for sure they need the money
that wait for me show these little boys how it's done we've ascertained no i ascertained me
quasi yes the ufl this contrast runs through the entire game starting with
the intro cab ride which right from the beginning establishes the theme of black
people being belligerent and emotional while white people can be reasoned with
in this scene the appearances of the gods are largely randomized except for
their skin color the first person speaking in an african language and antagonizing the driver is always
while the second person that speaks english and diffuses the situation is
always white where are you you come from the airport beer we drink beer hurry up then move along
yes sir thank you sir the game even highlights this contrast between reasonable westerners and violent
africans by going out of its way to clarify that foreign agencies are not
led into the country implying that only official outside help could save africa
from death and corruption but that agencies and governments just aren't given the opportunity to do so leading
ngos are calling for immediate humanitarian relief for the estimated 10 000 civilians trapped within these
borders but so far no outside agencies have been granted permission to enter the country what i can tell you is that
relief agencies are trying desperately to provide medical support and humanitarian aid to the civilians who
are bearing the brunt of this conflict the game's rhetoric ultimately conveys that corruption and stupidity are simply
part of the nature of africa and african politics regardless of foreign intervention to
put it bluntly africa is its own worst enemy their crisis is the result of their own
incompetence according to the game african leaders and thus their countries fail to achieve
the ideals that other civilizations have reached not because of any neocolonialist
political and economic pressure but because all of them are by nature
incompetent a simple answer to an incredibly complex and pressing issue that not only
explains nothing but also preemptively shuts down any alternative answer
it is that way because they are that way and if they've always been that way
nothing we ever did to them in the past caused the crisis therein right now
they were doomed from the start denying the future
the axiom of african violence the dire state of far cry 2s africa
manifests itself in two ways for one the land is ravaged by a civil
war between two factions causing destruction and suffering for their own people
highlighted by the trigger happiness that repeatedly thwarts the warlord's genuine attempts at brokering peace the
[ __ ] really hit the fan back in town there was supposed to be a ceasefire but that's all out the window now the jackals been hiding a massive weapons
cache on his island i've worked out a way to sail those weapons straight into the city under a ufl flag tamboza will
assume the front's to blame and next thing you know we're back at it i'm sorry it's just that we see so many foreign
mercenaries god even this ceasefire was too much to ask for however an even more immediate
threat is the violence that the warlords exact against the population in the form
of extortion or outright civilian massacres and while we never see these massacres they are often mentioned not
only on the radio but by the same people that wage this war i want you to focus on the real problem at hand the people
they are no longer listening to us defying our others they are the threats that's right these civilians are problems we're going to get them under
control i don't like the way things are going it's no longer safe i'm talking about those violent cowards
that hide in their home that refuse to fight for the honor of the academy they are the enemy however the game does the
200 iq move of pitching these two forms of violence against each other
effectively presenting them as a dichotomy where one of the two options must hold true to prevent the other from
occurring throughout the game it is repeatedly emphasized that peace between the
factions would only result in increased exploitation and extermination of
civilians but what is the problem the problem is that when big dogs showing forces they usually do need to take up
the rest of the pack i don't know what you mean sure you don't there's a good chance the warlords in the south could join forces now if
that happens guarantee blokes like you and me are out of a job or worse shot and dumped overboard like some rotten
meat the apr in the front is still coming after the civilians probably think they can kill them or drag them back over the
border a peace agreement on a joke a comedy act you think these men wanted peace they
wanted privacy is what they wanted they want the world to stop paying attention to them so they could go on with the raping and pillaging in peace you see
this sets up an ingenious dilemma whereby violence is inevitable either
between the factions or directly upon the people peace is not an option
whenever the faction conflict is being reignited it is thus framed as the lesser of two evils
this exempts the mercenaries from any wrongdoing as they plot against peace to
keep that from happening i'm going to stir the pot and instead directs the player's attention to the reckless
violent rationality seen in the native leader's behavior then okay nobody gets
medicine this is taboo's fault he is to blame with his selfishness and favoritism if
the api wants to know where their medicine has gone they need only to look at their leader through this elaborate
trick the game conveys one of the most essential aspects of its imperialist rhetoric
africa plus weapons equals war implying that in order to save africa we
must simply get rid of the weapons like a parent taking a kitchen knife out of
the hands of a clumsy child or else it'll hurt itself according to the game
africa cannot be trusted with any kind of power not now not ever
it is simply within the nature of these fictional native leaders to oppose and oppress their people
but this approach to try and keep advanced weaponry out of the hands of local governments would forever condemn
africa to some sort of eternal stone age with armies made up of spearmen a
bizarre idea that only highlights the actual inevitable conclusion
there will always be weapons i move weapons i profit from circulation i
resell them wherever the next war is starting so some of these guns are very old they've been sold bought and sold
repeatedly they're not biodegradable only the dead are biodegradable
and there will always be corrupt leadership so we've got new men in office
now what do you think's gonna happen you already know the whole world knows first they'll take everything they get their hands on rob the banks the stores
then the mail will be lined up against the wallet shot chop children's arms off and cut the tenons in the necks and
therefore there must always be war and crisis
violence and tyranny are the axiom of far cry 2's depiction of african politics denying africa any kind of
potential for change let alone a desirable future worth working towards
it represents africa as a place trapped in time by the violent instincts of
prehistoric ages this concept can also be observed in heart of darkness and is fully in
accordance with the colonialist notion that africa is not subject to the progression of history
i don't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time as we at the end of countless ages have
they still belonged to the beginnings of time had no inherited experience to teach
them as it were denying the present
you say it best when you say nothing at all a profitable strategy in the video game
industry is to tell stories that have all the appearance and gravitas of
deep-rooted social criticism but then carry none of the actual messaging in an
effort to appeal to as many customers as possible at best these games say nothing or very
little at all at worst they reinforce bigoted narratives either implicitly or
explicitly an ideal way of performing this feat is to do the following
in order to market your story as relevant and intellectual it has to address the symptoms of some real life
social power imbalance but so as to not drive away potential customers who might
be in favor of maintaining that imbalance your narrative then replaces the causes behind these symptoms with an
entirely fictional problem that absolves the actual profiteers of any guilt or
even involvement in the case of far cry 2 the player experiences the symptoms of economic and
political crisis violence and oppression but when pressed as to what caused this
crisis to come about in the first place the game says well it's foreign
intervention obviously okay how so well the foreigners shoot
the africans anything else
nope so let us look into the twisted neurotological purpose that far cry 2's
mercenaries fulfill within the game's rhetoric possibly the most revealing indicator of
their role in the game's preferred reading is the fact that towards the end of the story the foreign militia take
over the factions so here's what it's come to me in charge of the whole operation turning them into a
representation of the pure obsession with violence that the game projects on
to africa now that any pretension of goodwill is gone the ideologies that the factions
previously indulged in are revealed as mere propaganda and the mercenaries
simply portray that cynical pure form of an amoral tyrannical governing elite
that is diametrically opposed to their subjects however the mercenaries and the
villainous role they occupy in the story are just a convenient fairy tale to avoid having to address the far more
complex systemic oppression and exploitation that many african countries
are actually suffering from the game instead implies that the
foreign mercenary's recklessness is to blame for the state that according to its own rhetoric much of africa is in
because the mercenaries hold power over but do not care for africa
consider this example when there's a literal foreign agricultural mega-corporation in the game exploiting
the country's people resources and politics the african faction leader and
his mercenary aide agreed to launch a military assault on it in order
to weaken not the foreign business or the systems that allow it but the other
factions standing who just happened to be tasked with defending it
more importantly the mercenary who appears to be the driving force behind this decision openly admits to not
actually caring about the political and economic implications behind the
phenomenon that sits at the core of this mission it's a model right there doing there contaminating the water the land
sure whatever point is that the april's got an advantage of us in the end those presented to us as the villains in this
story are the reckless and ignorant mercenary aids earning their pay for
destroying the economy of a country they do not care for by the time the mission concludes the
convoluted narrative has completely sidelined the obvious culprit for the economic crisis at hand and
redistributed the blame from accountable real-world systems onto unaccountable
fictional individuals this example perfectly encapsulates how
far cry 2 actively refuses to elaborate on the neocolonialist story behind the
humanitarian crisis upon the back of which it proudly markets itself
when the game's own narrative threatens to address the elephant in the room it instead provides an easy non-answer to
distract from the actual less convenient one the game basically says
damn you got me it was the mercenaries it was their fault all along you found
me out well i guess we're done here there's nothing else to look for moving swiftly
on following the game's own rhetoric where
any political agenda is just a disguise for tyranny any actually meaningful
discussion of the ins and outs of multinational corporations and institutions exploiting africa's people
and politics would mean getting lost in petty details far cry 2
much like heart of darkness discusses the effects of colonialism but refrains
from discussing colonialism itself it therefore denies the circumstances
around africa's very real present struggle while claiming the laurels for
mentioning its symptoms the end of civilization
chaos and distrust lastly both texts present africa as a
space that turns one's civil friends into savage enemies the novel portrays this concept of
growing discord among its pioneers by having allies scheming against one another in pursuit of wealth and
reputation in ways that only the law of the land or more precisely lack thereof
allows for they beguiled the time by backbiting and
intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way there was an air of plotting about that
station a pestilential fellow snapping ivory from the natives
we will not be free from unfair competition until one of these fellows is hanged for an example he said
certainly granted the other get him hanged why not anything
anything can be done in this country that's what i say nobody here you understand
here can endanger your position this concept of back stabbery induced by
the insanity and chaos of africa sits at the core of heart of darkness's narrative and must therefore also form
the center of far cry 2's character development the game's so-called buddies as well as
the faction leaders and commanders first appear to fight alongside the protagonist until we slowly come to
learn that the dire situation fosters mutual distrust and that everyone
essentially fights for themselves this guy he's always making deals on the side they're planning something i know it you
got to kill carbinol instead he's no good he'll stab you in the back you are doing some work with bantu
he didn't tell you everything i have a feeling i'm being cheated these men are taking me there so that i can see it for
myself or maybe they are taking me there to kill me who knows he's going to learn that he does not want me as an enemy i
thought i could trust you as a result over the course of the game the civil facade of ideals loyalty and friendship
slowly crumbles away as one by one the lives of all major characters are
claimed by the apparatus of their plodding and scheming against one another culminating in the final
betrayal by our previous companions
in conclusion both texts show a civilization that succumbs to the allure
of the primitive order ceases to be relevant social hierarchies lose their meaning
and nature and violence become the only authority with death as the universal
truth that sits at the core of human life and as the only constant in the
chaos this is the other both our deepest fears
and forbidden desires made manifest something that we have learned to be
appalled by but that speaks to our curiosity like no other
heart of darkness famously coined the terminology for this concept
the other savagery had closed round him all the mysterious life of the
wilderness that stirs in the forest in the jungles in the hearts of wild men
there is no initiation either into such mysteries he has to live in the midst of the
incomprehensible which is also detestable the fascination of the abomination
but somewhere on the way to embracing this abomination and indulging in the madness the protagonist crossed an
invisible line between the civilized and the savage between humanity and in
humanity a third space that marks a point of no return
The Threshold
[Music] he had made that last stride yet stepped
over the edge while i had been permitted to draw back my
hesitating foot and perhaps in this is the whole difference
perhaps all the wisdom and all truth and all sincerity are just compressed into
that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible
his cry was an affirmation a moral victory paid for by innumerable
defeats by abominable terrors by abominable satisfactions
but it was a victory both the books and the game's main
character's voyage into the heart of darkness symbolizes the journey to the
core of their own psyche far cry 2's protagonist and the jackal transgress the invisible line both in
the form of metaphorical boundaries and spatial borders
and therefore both ultimately succumb to disease and death
heart of darkness is marlow on the other hand steps back at the last second as he
does not commit atrocities similar to kurtz and can thus return to england
while kurtz must die to better understand the concepts behind
this threshold we can look at it through the lens of a psychoanalytical theory that has proven quite popular in
narrative fiction which is the freudian concept of the id the id represents the primal instincts
and drives of a human being such as the desire to eat to reproduce and to kill
it manifests itself in emotions such as hunger lust anger
and fear according to this fairly outdated by the way theory the only thing that keeps the
id in check is its opposite the superego which is an amalgamation of societal taboos and
restrictions that a human being internalizes through a constant pressure from parents institutions and social
norms in general it manifests itself in emotions like shame and guilt
between these two forces that fight for control over a person's actions sits the
ego sort of a decision-making apparatus that seeks to satisfy the id within the
boundaries that the superego allows for it is through these concepts that we can
categorize the different steps that carry our protagonists across the threshold and that finally seal their
fate initiation losing the superego
right after the game's introduction we meet the jackal who is introduced as an almost divine figure whose primal wisdom
allows him to take control of the chaos rather than be consumed by it
he is the one pulling the strings behind war and peace in africa and the ultimate
arbiter of life and death what your old clients don't seem to understand is that they can't kill me
do you understand what i'm saying nobody kills me nobody
i'm the one who decides who lives and who dies me this aligns with the depiction of heart
of darkness's kurtz as an altogether mythical character who managed to adapt
to life among the natives ending up being revered and more importantly
feared by them like a literal god and whose wisdom surpasses anything that
civilization could teach kurtz and the jackal also both remain mysteriously out of reach so as to
remain the final destinations of marlow's and the protagonist's journeys respectively the jackal presents the
protagonist's main assassination target and reaching kurtz is marlow's only
objective the process of finding these two men then gradually turns from a mere
order to an intimate obsession and both eventually function as an ideological
anchor point for their respective pursuers while marlow over the course of the book
gradually develops an apocalyptic ideology reveling in the downfall of
civilization until he hears it from kurtz himself towards the end of the novel the game's protagonist is
explicitly confronted with the jackals ideology right at the beginning of his
journey it is in his first speech that the jackal introduces the concept of social
darwinism through a quote taken from nietzsche's beyond good and evil you know there's a book i read a long time
ago still think about it every day it helps me understand life out here the book talks about men and what motivates
them simple really a living being seeks above all else to discharge its strength
life itself is will to power nothing else matters here he lays out the belief that man has a primeval drive to assert
his stance in the natural hierarchy through fear and violence
it is this unfaltering belief that apparently allowed the jackal to outlast all of his adversaries and to survive in
the savage environment he dwelts in which mirrors marlow's conclusions to
life in africa let the fool gape and shudder the man
can look on without a wink but he must at least be as much of a man as these natives he must meet that truth
with his own true stuff with his own inborn strength principles principles won't do
acquisitions clothes pretty rags rags that would fly off at the first
good shake no you want a deliberate belief
the whole idea of having to fend off africa's onslaught of insanity then leads to a much more troubling question
if africa assaults human life itself what does that make the native
population how are they unaffected by the madness that infects the foreigners
they appear after all to embrace the conditions that their homeland offers even in the midst of total anarchy many
are trapped scared of what will happen if they are caught trying to leave and there are others who have chosen to stay
are they all divine beings just as kurtz and the jackal the novel offers two answers to this
question one is the understanding that the natives are barely even human at all
and resemble the foreigners only by the most basic definition of humanity
since far cry 2 can obviously not indulge this ideology openly
they opt for the alternative answer that the novel provides of course you may be too much of a fool
to go wrong too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the power of darkness
i take it no fool ever made a bargain for a soul with the devil the fool is too much of a fool
or the devil too much of a devil everyone's trying to find a way to prevent
only food
both answers share a common denominator in the concept of mental capacity the
core difference between western foreigners and african natives the game and novel tell us is that the westerners
have developed a reliance on rational thought that makes them vulnerable to
the influence of the other while the natives understanding of the world must be so far removed from ours that they
could never become the target of africa's corruption in the first place the jackal's proposed ideology is
therefore presented as necessary for an intelligent person to navigate the spaces of the unintelligent
in order to survive the madness one must partake in the act of madness
ironically though the jackals belief system that was meant to ward off the protagonist's mental deterioration
instead initiates it the jackal is presented as an invulnerable legend
while we as the protagonist struggle to even survive abiding by the principles of a civilized
society is no longer an option we learn you're fired you know it so do i you had your shot but now it's over and since
men like you only work for money you're no longer my problem you'll have to find something else to do
with yourself now and so we in turn must also resort to the underlying natural
hierarchy and embark on our own journey of death and violence hoping to one day
match that level of invulnerability that we just witnessed our next encounter in this case a
militia named carbonell emphasizes that we are in fact as of now a nobody i
don't care what your name is you're just the problem right now i've got a few errands for you erin boy get on out here
try not to get distracted between the door and the car you look like you're gonna drop that any second this contrast
between legend and nobody sets up the next step in the ideology of natural
hierarchy in the form of the game's reputation system where just like in heart of darkness our authority and
power is not determined by social ranks and institutional badges but by our
notoriety for the fear we are capable to instill just like kurtz in heart of darkness was able to control the natives
through sheer fear and displace of brutality whatever he was he was not common
he had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated
witch dance in his honor as a nobody we start at the bottom of
the hierarchy with no reputation to our name another soldier for hire what is a
queen rate for miss another these days from there we have to work our way up to the top occupied by infamous madmen like
the jackal himself higher reputation levels awarded for ruthless hit jobs and destruction result
in vastly different npc responses and a new npc chatter i've been saving it for
that crazy mercury's turning things up sorry man let me get out of your way additional ai behavior like soldiers
fleeing and panicking just one guy right one guy
and even deadlier equipment used against the player by completing missions our reputation
level inevitably rises and with it the body count as the protagonist adopts the jackal's
belief system his drive to kill takes over while feelings of guilt are no
longer applicable where there is no civilization and no social contract
there is no superego indifference surrendering the ego
and then i saw this station these men strolling aimlessly about in the
sunshine of the yard i asked myself sometimes what it all meant
they wandered here and there with their absurd long staves in their hands like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched
inside a rotten fence the word ivory rang in the air
was whispered beside you would think they were praying to it
just like ivory consumes the minds of the colonizers in the novel all that motivates far cry 2's
mercenaries is diamonds they just like ivory represent the
westerners distraction of the mind a fixation that not only leaves their defense open for corruption but that
triggers the aggression and infighting which slowly dissolves the underpinning structures of civilization the only
currency worth [ __ ] is rough diamonds don't except paper money from anybody i wouldn't wipe my ass with it this is
even underlined through cases of diamonds that can be unearthed across the country always conveniently
distracting the player by stopping them in their tracks with the ever-present tracker signal lighting up and alerting
them of a nearby suitcase diamonds being the only currency in the game quite literally dominate all
mechanics as they allow the purchasing of better more reliable and more accurate weaponry improved vehicles
armor and even healing capabilities since there is no character level system
in the game that might grant skills in exchange for experience diamonds are the only avenue to keep up
with the increasingly tough enemy encounters and thus drive the player's actions entirely
diamonds and ivory therefore also present the driving force behind the actions of the jackal in far cry 2 and
his heart of darkness equivalent of curse both are fueled by greed yet neither of
them amasses their wealth for any reason other than fame or rather infamy kurtz
doesn't want to do anything with the ivory he manically accumulates and the jackal doesn't intend to leave the
country either they only do what they're doing out of habit because they cannot
escape the vicious cycle of savagery for them there is no more life outside
africa worth working towards he hated all this and somehow he
couldn't get away when i had a chance i begged him to try and leave while there was time
i offered to go back with him and he would say yes and then he would remain
go off on another ivory hunt disappear for weeks forget himself amongst these people
forget himself you know to them greed was just the catalyst to
the realization that there is no sense to anything in life and that no one no
matter how powerful and wise they may appear is actually in control of their own
lives let alone the world that surrounds them with the lack of power laid bare there
is nothing left for the ego to choose between the superego or culture is irrelevant
and the id or nature is outside of our control anyway as marlow comes to
realize midway through the novel before i could come to any conclusion it
occurred to me that my speech or my silence indeed any action of mine
would be a mere futility what did it matter what anyone knew or
ignored what did it matter who was manager one gets sometimes such a flash of
insight the essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface
beyond my reach and beyond my power of meddling
the second stage of stepping over the edge thus lies in admitting one's own lack of power over the other
over the course of his troubled journey into the heart of the dark continent it slowly dawns on marlowe that all the
displays of order and power that he observes in his countrymen are nothing but an imperialist paper tiger and that
no one can actually control the darkness not even kurtz
the other is just so different the id so persistent that every attempt to rein it
in must fail the novel thus presents africa as the ultimate truth the purest form of the
disease that sits dormant inside the minds of every one of us and that needs
to be feared and kept at bay so as to prevent it from bringing its darkness to
western civilization the mind of a man is capable of anything
because everything is in it all the past as well as all the future
what was there after all joy fear sorrow devotion valor
rage who can tell but truth truth stripped of its cloak of time
in the game this feeling of futility reaches its peak at the start of act two
with the protagonist's realization that he has no choice but to reignite the war
with an arms shipment thereby not only failing to stop the influx of weapons
the entire point of his journey but actively participating in it
this event marks the climax of a slow lead up to the protagonist's surrender
to the power of africa he finds himself at the helm of a mission the morality of
which runs completely counter to everything he set out to do so by this point he has grown
indifferent as to the morality of his actions the fate of the supposed villain
or even that of his own and has given up on the perceived force of ethics and principles
imagine the growing regrets the longing to escape the powerless disgust
the surrender the hate the further the story progresses the
clearer the self-defeating futility becomes the protagonist starts out with
good and pure intentions a man with a good soul will not be denied but a good fifth gesture feeds that soul but then
he rescues and helps his buddies that will later betray him you're wasting time just shoot him he made our deal
he's not a part of it i'm sorry he tries to put an end to the influx of weapons ending up smuggling them himself he
strives to weaken the factions by hunting down the jackal but in order to find a lead on him must work for them
and thus help to destroy the very country he meant to save
the protagonist slowly comes to the realization that even in the absence of the jackal the very same events still
transpire in the end it doesn't matter who is faction leader it doesn't matter which
faction has the power because no one is in control of anything
not even the jackal when all ethical decision making appears futile there is
no place for the ego to decide what is right and wrong all that matters now are
natural instincts and desires the other side
becoming the id on the way to kurtz marlow undergoes a voyage that threatens to shape him into
the very thing he initially despised he sees his own reflection and the horrid
displays of kurtz who has long succumbed to his innermost savage drives most
manifest in the sacrificial heads on spikes that have been propped up around his hut
these round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic
food for thought and also for vultures they would have been even more
impressive those heads on the stakes if their faces had not been turned to the
house these effigies encapsulate the native traditions and rituals that kurtz
adopted and the atrocities to which his continued presence in africa led him
in the game all of these features are mirrored in the character of the jackal his clothing resembles the traditional
dashiki attire portraying him as someone who to a certain degree adapted to life
in africa too he learned how to think and act like the natives who also have a
real soft spot for collecting the heads of their enemies tamboza had a brother and somebody just killed a man the guy
who did it took a trophy to prove he did it way wants the trophy there are some sick people in this world
and the jackal then merely replicates their brutality the stages of curses and the jackals
corruption are also metaphorically represented by disease whereby the other
quite literally takes over their bodies in the form of slow but unstoppable
decay just like kurtz suffers from a slow debilitating fever the jackal likewise
presumably only has three months left to live however while kurtz is fighting a
tropical illness native to the land and is therefore essentially assaulted by
africa itself the jackal is plagued by cancer this is repeatedly framed as a
metaphorical african disease that represents africa's unstoppable corruption because the jackal himself
uses it as an analogy to describe the violence and insanity in the country
that he himself is part of there's a gun disease where it is a cancer you see it they can't get enough they just take and
take until it kills them and once they're gone someone else takes their place in their disease too every cell is infected every cell of this cancer has
to be destroyed that includes you and me if we don't finish this and the whole mission has been a waste of ours it'll
start up again just like it always does the specific fact that it is brain cancer also implies an illness of the
psyche a fatal mental affliction that functions as a metaphor for the madness that has
befallen him far cry 2's protagonist fully resembles both kurtz and the jackal in his descent
into unredeemable violence and insanity as well as his affliction with a lingering tropical disease the infamous
malaria just like marlow is often reminded of the fact that he might turn into the
same other that kurtz had become the game frequently points out that the jackal represents a later stage in the
same corruption process that the protagonist is undergoing and that the same violent savagery observed in the
jackal will inevitably befall the protagonist as well you think i don't know you which are about what you came
here to do wake up i used to be you this one in particular goes even deeper
immediately after this encounter the protagonists diary expresses shock and disgust at the jackal's apparent madness
and the killing spree that he set out to commit but only a few hours later comes to this
conclusion he's insane but he's right not only does the protagonist slowly
turn into the jackal africa's nature its darkness and wilderness assimilate him as well
slowly drawing the protagonist's behavior away from that of a civilized
person here's a dog hungry for a boat this is most notably achieved by means
of game rules and goals the game's mechanical rhetoric arguably encourages
the player to mimic the behavior of a predator animal more than that of a human being
let's look at some of these rules and mechanics in detail firstly the rule set around traversal of
the map gradually makes the player abandon civilized norms
the first thing you realize when playing the game is that civilization quickly becomes an indicator for danger since
human structures imply human presence and all humans out in the wild are
hostile any sign of human life automatically triggers a heightened awareness and extreme caution
you start by avoiding guard posts altogether then you steer clear of any man-made structures on the roadside and
soon you even try to stay off the roads as much as possible since enemy cars can pop out of seemingly nowhere
as a result the player quickly internalizes that avoiding signs of human life such as roads and houses is
the most effective approach to survival not unlike the instinctual behavior of a
wild animal or that of a rally driver if you will 50 down
concentrate the second mechanical phenomenon
steering the player towards non-human behavior is combat one surefire way to get yourself killed
in far cry 2 is charging enemies head on even with tactics in mind as it is
incredibly risky and therefore highly discouraged by the game's rule set
instead the game offers a solid stealth system that allows the player to more easily sneak up on enemies at night or
by hiding in vegetation catching enemies when they're unaware or distracted
in fact when remaining completely still and silent it is possible to become
virtually invisible to hostile forces in addition to this the game also sports
a wide range of silenced weaponry that makes it harder for enemies to triangulate the protagonist's position
these range from a silenced pistol a silenced sniper rifle and a silenced smg
all the way to outright comical oddities like a suppressed shotgun straight out of no country for old men
these mechanics encourage an animal-like knight prowler playstyle where the
protagonist takes on an almost mythical role that triggers a primal fear among
the militia panicking over his actions and whereabouts as if he were not a man
but a monster too quiet [Music]
thirdly the game's mission and open world design motivate unfettered violence leading the player down a
bloody path of increasingly brutal killing sprees and ethically more than questionable actions however the game
achieves this by convincing not only the protagonist of the necessity of these actions but also the player that
controls him which results in a supposedly critical rhetoric that is
however virtually indistinguishable from an endorsement of the very same behavior
essentially the game wants to show the player how inhuman the protagonist has
become but in order to make the player steer the protagonist into committing
these terrible actions the game needs to first convince the player that these inhuman actions are necessary by means
of rules and since video game rules constitute the facts of their diegetic worlds excuses for mass murder are no
longer excuses they are within the game's rule set legitimate reasons
let's dive into some examples starting with the game's mission design
typically at one of the factions you receive a mission to kill a key figure or destroy valuable
infrastructure you want a job we've got one it's good assassination chief of police
bam your best buddy mercenary then calls you up on the phone and invites you to
discuss a more effective and manipulative approach by playing several
opposing parties against one another there's a better way to get the job done you confront the target and are then
often free to follow up on the original mission when all is done your buddy then calls
on you to help them fend off an anticipated counter-attack or a sudden ambush
this is the structure that almost every single quest rigidly follows and all of
these missions are framed as necessary to get a lead on the jackal however
despite the heavily implied ethical dilemma of killing in the name of peace
the player is never actually confronted with the personal economic or humanitarian consequences of the actions
that they make the protagonist commit and this means that within the rules of
the game they are morally free to indulge in what these missions are actually meant to
convey killing is fun blow the whole place up
[Applause] [Music]
um [Music]
this is what the game wants you to feel like in its mechanics and simultaneously feel bad for in its
plot the system by which the game's rule set betrays the veneer of the narrative is
also perfectly encapsulated by the game's open world design
everyone you encounter in the open world is by design hostile towards the player
while any civilians you meet are sectioned off into areas that do not allow you to draw a weapon in the first
place this portrayal of africa as deserted with barely any sign of human life just
a vast hostile expanse empty and dead also echoes heart of darkness's
portrayal of the continent paths paths everywhere
a stampeding network of paths spreading over the empty land through
long grass through burnt grass through thickets down and up chilly ravines up
and down stony hills ablaze with heat and a solitude
nobody not a hut the population had cleared out a long
time ago however while this phenomenon does mimic the novel it also perversely creates a
perfect mercenary utopia in which the most reasonable reaction to the slightest sense of danger is literally
to shoot anything that moves because everything that does move is according
to the game's logic out to kill you the game even makes sure to reiterate
this fact to the player whenever they accept a main mission this is a classified mission that means everyone's
an enemy even api nobody knows about this copy ufl guys you they'll shoot you inside you're on
your own baby and so this is what you adhere to shooting everyone and everything never giving it a second
thought because the game rules exempted you from that burden or as the mercenary
yossim perfectly puts it she'll first ask questions later this leads us into imagery of the 2007 nissau square
massacre to emphasize that through this design choice the game's mechanics
establish the exact mindset that triggers the very real massacres that it
decries in its narration far cry 2's open world rule set portrays a set of ideologies and conceptions that
in the real world brought about the most heinous civilian atrocities committed by
trigger-happy militia that were looking for any excuse to see a potential enemy
in every innocent civilian around them but it does so by turning this deranged
pipe dream into a reality essentially legitimizing mass murder
through its mechanics while purporting to condemn it in its narrative in the world of far cry 2 every
potential innocent civilian is a hostile insurgent the game therefore no longer
just depicts the inner workings of reckless mercenary ideology it conveys
them as appropriate one could argue that this is the game mechanic equivalent to heart of
darkness's literary failure to subvert an ideology by just depicting the underlying colonialist concepts as fact
rather than fiction the game even goes one step further by using this technique of universal
hostility to actively motivate actions that even acknowledging the fact that
the victims are hostiles are on the surface deeply unethical
most notably the game distinguishes several levels of wounded states forcing
the player to frequently finish off enemies that are already limping lying on the ground or even being
carried to safety by an ally however beneath this horrid surface the
game rules ensure that it is always in the player's best interest to do so as
even heavily wounded enemies pose a significant threat again on the one hand this very
successfully motivates the atrocities it needs the player to commit for the protagonist's declining character arc to
progress accordingly but on the other it does so by justifying terrible actions
as reasonable and necessary which contradicts the entire point of the protagonist committing unnecessary acts
of aggression you look here to canalza the player always acts in self-defense
and therefore experiences africa as a sandbox free from ethical inhibitions in
which every human that can be killed must be killed these three branches of the game's
procedural rhetoric work together to guide the player along a path that turns
the protagonist into an animal in all but form in the way he moves
fights and most importantly fields finally having stepped over the
threshold the protagonist has become the id and given in to the desires of the
other this includes adopting the jackal's coping mechanism and like him
falling victim to its corruptive natural hierarchy as well as acknowledging his own and the jackal's surrender in the
face of the overwhelming influence of africa subsequently the protagonist discovers
that the jackal has been a red herring and ubiquitous boogeyman all along they dare to show me anger they find my
others i don't know what's come over them the jackals come over there that's what i'm telling you he's up to something
enough of that i don't want to hear that man's name again once the villain of the story he is now revealed as a victim and
a straw man for the crisis when the actual problem supposedly lies far
deeper possibly beyond anyone's understanding mirroring heart of darkness's rhetoric
to the letter this portrayal exempts the agents of the story from any inherent blame
it is not the jackal or the mercenaries that committed unspeakable crimes but
whatever outside influence drove the perpetrators to commit them a rhetoric that blames africa itself for
the actions of its invaders this then makes us wonder how does the
game's narrative explain and communicate the seemingly supernatural forces that
drive the humans of these stories to the brink and oftentimes beyond the threshold of inhumanity
what inescapable punishment is enshrined in the very earth of africa
i don't understand that dj for liberation totally mental
crappies in their slaughtering civilians like they can't [Music]
i think we're all screwed
[Music]
so
Death
ah my boy i say trust to this i saw him extend his arm for gesture
that took in the forest the creek the mud the river
a treacherous appeal to the lurking death to the hidden evil to the profound
darkness of its heart the high stillness confronted these two
figures with its ominous patience waiting for the passing away of a
fantastic invasion in a few days the eldorado expedition
went into the patient wilderness that closed upon it as the sea closes over a
diver long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead
i know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals they no doubt like
the rest of us found what they deserved
both heart of darkness and far cry 2 portray the land itself as an antagonistic character over which its
invaders have no power and which will inevitably rid itself of them opening up
a twisted dichotomy of agency on the side of nature and passivity on the side
of humankind civilized characters are therefore destined to perish as punishment for the
naive notion they could in fact control or even manipulate the wilderness
the wilderness agency heart of darkness's rainforest is
presented almost as a creature in itself that lures one in but cannot be overcome
and will devour anyone who enters i wondered whether the stillness on the
face of the immensity looking at us to were meant as an appeal or as a menace
could we handle that dumb thing or would it handle us i felt how big how confoundedly big was
that thing that couldn't talk and perhaps was deaf as well what was in there
africa's nature thus represents the antithesis to the enlightened subject it
cannot be handled instead it handles us like the freudian id that undermines the
rational ego likewise far cry 2 frequently acknowledges an invisible yet ubiquitous
curse on the land that carries within it an inherent evil
at times this sentiment is mocked by the game's characters but as its prophecy of
death and inexplicable eternal crisis ultimately holds true
so does the insinuation of a demonic presence they can't explain why people are disappearing thinner
actually they can right let me guess jungle magic what the hell's going on around here maybe a dozen floats with pedophiles
what do you want no way there's more to it i think that made butchers doing trying to weaken our resolve you're
saying an independent merc is making parasites appear among a men it's possible you got that yeah whatever hey
what's that in your head sure laugh it up you'll see the antagonism of africa's nature
towards foreigners communicates a contrast between the familiarity of western society and the otherness of
africans by emphasizing the uninhabitability of africa to the colonizers on the one hand and the
natives connection to the very same place as a desirable homeland on the other
while the game portrays african natives as merely at odds with the westerners perception of africa heart of darkness
takes this concept to its necessary end point here the natives are synonymous with the
jungle they are one which on the one hand underpins the supposed agency of the wilderness and on
the other hand undermines the native's own agency as a mere hive mind guided by
nature itself thirdly it binds the natives to the place and shows that only those birthed
by the wilderness survive while outsiders cannot
consider the following scene equating nature and natives
suddenly a group of men appeared as though they had come up from the ground
and as if by enchantment streams of human beings of naked human beings with wild glances
and savage movements were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced pensive
forest the stretcher shook as the bearer staggered forward and almost at the same
time i noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible
movement of retreat as if the forest that had ejected these beings so
suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration
this depiction of the natives as the mere personification of africa's wilderness is a final step that far cry
2 is fortunately unwilling to take when depicting the agency of nature
however the game excessively indulges in the portrayal of this concept's flip
side the necessary lack of agency among its human characters
man lack of agency in both the novel and the game africa is
presented as the deathbed of rationality the human mind becomes ever more
unreliable as tools break sanity decreases and savagery takes hold
heart of darkness's colonizers do not conquer africa after all africa conquers them
similarly far cry 2's mechanics must therefore also convey a rhetoric that instills a constant feeling of
powerlessness in the player who is regularly faced with unexpected challenges such as malaria attacks
fires random encounters weapon jams and general unpredictability and chaos
in combat this plethora of mechanics ensures that the player never feels fully in control
of the events in the game let's examine them in reverse order
while combat may appear straightforward it is a first person shooter after all it generally doesn't unfold the way the
player envisioned owing to a mix of rather open level design and poor readability it is easy to lose sight of
enemies making it hard to notice you're being surrounded which is usually an immediate death sentence
far cry 2 breaks with traditional genre conventions by only providing the bare
minimum of information and leaving the rest to luck or lack thereof
the game is perfectly fine with thwarting the player's plans and letting them stumble into frequent unwinnable
situations that either end in a daring escape or death sometimes both
a more tangible source for disruption and frustration are the game's various tool degradation systems
your first job after the game's intro for example is to repair a car in order to be able to move around it all
things being constantly broken or in need of repair is in line with the concept of a world beyond a civilization
where all tools cease to be trustworthy turning against their users in the most
dire situations homo farber the illusion of a rational subject faces his greatest nemesis
the wilderness the metaphor for the irrational where people are no longer agents but patients
in the novel the steamer that marlow is in charge of repeatedly breaks down and must be repaired at one point leaving
him and his crew waiting for months to receive a shipment of rivets to fix the hull while they slowly descend into
madness i slapped him on the back and shouted we shall have rivets he scrambled to his
feet exclaiming no rivets as though he couldn't believe his ears
i don't know why we behaved like lunatics i put my finger on the side of my nose
and nodded mysteriously a good for you he cried snapped his fingers above his
head lifting one foot a dark figure obscured the lighted doorway of the manager's hut
vanished then a second or so after the doorway itself vanished too
we stopped and the silence driven away by the stamping of our feet flowed back
again from the recesses of the land after all set the boilermaker in a
reasonable tone why shouldn't we get the rivets why not indeed
i did not know of any reason why we shouldn't they'll come in three weeks i said
confidently but they didn't far cry 2 establishes this concept of
the maddening failure of technology by means of two mechanics for one the player like marlow heavily
relies on vehicles to move around the map vehicles that deteriorate over time
going from brand new to rusty and worn which makes them more prone to defects
decreasing their acceleration until they break down entirely any vehicle can be damaged in a number of ways and to
varying degrees and all of them can be repaired a frustrating process that
interrupts travel wastes time and exposes one to pursuers patrols and
ambushes the same concept is underlined by the weapon degradation system whereby any
gun decays with use leading to unpredictable weapon jams sometimes at
the most inconvenient of times and after a number of shots any weapon
will eventually fall apart entirely they cannot be repaired but replaced at
armouries scattered across the map like stations in heart of darkness they present minuscule enclaves of
civilization that allow the protagonist to restock essential supplies for his otherwise limited expeditions into the
wilderness however among all the weapons and upgrades on offer at these armories and
gun stores the protagonist is never allowed access to gadgetry that would trivialize the potential threats nor can
he erase any threat for good the map unlike those of the sequels cannot be conquered god posts are
constantly repopulated and enemy encounters only turn more dangerous the longer the playtime runs on ensuring
that one unaware moment will always lead to immediate death
[Music] the risk of coming across deadly encounters is also deviously heightened
because fast travel is restricted to traveling between only five different bus stops per map most of which are
miles away from any potential points of interest that would be relevant to many of the game's missions however no manual
means of traversal is safe which is why the rarity of these fast travel points
forces the player into constant risk taking even setting aside the random encounters
like ambushes or patrols it is simply impossible to reach any point on the map
without having to fight your way through sneak around or boat past an array of guard posts and fortresses in what can
only be described as a maze of potential threats a minefield that can be set off
with the slightest of missteps an even greater danger than the enemies you can see are those you can't see as
many hostile forces are often concealed by their natural surroundings a phenomenon that quickly conditions the
player to avoid combat in dense vegetation altogether it is not a rare occurrence to be shot
at from various angles without being able to spot the attackers let alone shoot them
as a result the jungle's visually obstructive environment eventually triggers a sense of constant alert in
the player which in turn renders anything beyond once often rather short range of vision and therefore eventually
the jungle itself a threat of its own thus granting the forest the agency that
the narrative implies luckily the same game that teaches us that african nature itself presents an
inherent danger also provides us with weapons to wield against it in true
american fashion the answer to jungle is fire and the game does not hide its
affinity to it from its intro videos to its extensive simulative programming
to the tactical balancing that makes it a rather effective tool against the ai
sticking with a theme of losing control however fire can easily become a trap of its own while not quite as unpredictable
as in the game's sequels it is always an agent of chaos to everyone including the
arsonists themselves in this capacity fire fulfills the same thematic role as
malaria as it represents african nature spreads uncontrollably and kills
everything it touches hey look at it
lastly malaria manifests itself through bursts of dizziness and disorientation
you stand the climate you outlast them all you have been well since you came out this time
the who i oh like a charm like a charm but the rest
oh my goodness all sick they die so quick too i haven't the time to send them out of the country it's incredible
these unpredictable attacks suddenly stop the player in their tracks and can turn an encounter in the enemy's favor
at the drop of a hat as the symptoms require instant medication on the spot
the frequency of these malaria attacks is governed by the protagonist's current sickness level with higher levels
resulting in more flare-ups progression through the stages of malaria is also tied to narrative
progression if i were you i'd go buy some medicine first that malaria is nothing to screw around with get
yourself healthy and come by the front office in town i'll introduce you to kakumba as a result the protagonist will
always suffer from the worst kind of affliction towards the end of the story since malaria as mentioned before is
merely a metaphorical corporal reflection of his mental decay into inhumanity so when the journey of his
psychological corruption concludes so does the physical one incidentally the only way to prolong
your life against malaria is by helping the native population flee the country
by delivering them passports and receiving new medication in return thus lowering one's sickness level it is no
coincidence that the medicine is first administered not by a doctor but a priest which ties the cure to malaria to
the cleansing of the soul the only way to delay the progression of the disease is therefore to engage in
civilized empathy or in other words rediscovering one's own humanity helps
resist to succumb to the exploration of one's inhumanity on the flip side the protagonist's
refusal to help the innocent refugees would inevitably lead to his untimely
death or speaking metaphorically avoiding acts of humanity is tied to
physical decay thus emphasizing the interconnectedness between the corruptions of mind and body
with nature as the agent and man as the patient it is only a matter of time for
the latter to slowly succumb to the former and in this undetectable slowness
lies the key to the mercenaries and the colonizer's demise
death not a state but a process the game like the novel consistently
equates insanity with death but if the path to insanity is a journey rather
than an event so is the path to death every aspect of far cry 2 must stress
that losing one's humanity does not come about through a sudden incident that could theoretically have been prevented
but through a slow and unstoppable process which is why the game also goes to great lengths to portray losing one's
life as a process rather than a dichotomy only when there is a continuum between
life and death and humanity and inhumanity does the narrative allow for
an unfamiliar intermediate space a threshold that one can pass unknowingly
mechanically this also means that death in the literal sense of game rules cannot be binary as mentioned before
enemies undergo several wounded states but so does the protagonist who can also
be saved by a friend on standby after merely falling unconscious upon what would otherwise have been the end
likewise the same companions can be saved in the field by the protagonist if severely wounded or die permanently if
not tended to malaria goes through literal stages one
through five even the health bar is divided into five stages with different rules attached to
them some refill on their own completely empty stages can only be healed through syringes while the more
dire states deplete rather than refill and can only be mended with slow and often gruesome first aid
as the protagonist finally reaches the heart of darkness both processes conclude he is no longer human and no
longer willing to fight for his life the killing of africa
far cry 2's journey comes to a close when both the protagonist and the jackal team up to execute what they consider
the only actual solution to africa's crisis which is to give up on it entirely and put it out of its misery
like a sickly and infectious animal an entire country is about to disappear
they're in the way we can't do our work if they're here we have to isolate this disease so we can destroy it the game
tells us that africa is destined to die and that all we can do to help is
euthanize it by evacuating its civilians and murdering everyone else
africa's people are patients that must be quarantined implying that they themselves carry the sickness in them
and the longer you stay the deeper the virus goes in the end nobody will be left just the disease so what do you do
with this particular situation quarantine the patients and even once they're gone the actual
source of the disease the land itself remains according to the game's rhetoric both
narratively and ludically africa is the disease and worst of all
it is terminal when the process of corruption is completed and both the jackal and the
protagonist have become one with africa its doom has become theirs as well
the last saving grace is their agency over their own deaths which is why it is
impossible for the story to conclude in any way other than suicide that got in there is a good piece never jams one
shot is all you'll need you're a terminal case same as me at least we can do something about it with
the synchronized deaths of the jackal the protagonist
and africa itself the narrative makes good on three promises firstly it
delivers the expected ironic payoff to the setup at the start of the game i'm the one who decides who lives and who
dies me in the end it is the jackal himself who decides that he has to die
by his own hand secondly the game's ending seals the fate of its trespassing main characters
according to the rule said that it itself established all those who pass the threshold into africa's inhumanity
must die lastly it not only completes the retelling of the basic story beats of
heart of darkness but also signs off on its ideological messaging and conclusively closes the door on any
potential for a re-reading or even parody of its source material
the two main differences between the ideological conclusions of heart of darkness and far cry 2 are that on the
one hand the novel features crass racist depictions of the natives themselves
that the game only dares to imply while on the other far cry 2 dares to follow
the novel's ideology to its necessary end point which heart of darkness couldn't bring itself to put
into words but there is no subversion taking place both the game and the novel complement
each other to form a clear anti-african rhetoric and even though the game first
appears to be more subtle about it it makes up for its initial restraint in the outright genocidal implications of
its ending it does not recommend killing all africans but it does recommend
killing africa [Music]
Conclusion
on the ideological surface of both far cry 2 and heart of darkness lies an
age-old critique of colonialism to tear treasure out of the bowels of
the land was their desire with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking
into a safe every year these medicines come into our country steal everything and they leave
us nothing in referencing the novel the game had the opportunity to approach this setting
from a postcolonial angle but in trying to elaborate on its narrative without
understanding the underlying ideology like heart of darkness far cry 2 simply
perpetuates the colonialist mindset instead of subverting it
by yet again focusing on the traditional story of the corruptive other the threshold to inhumanity and inevitable
death far cry 2 merely revisits the themes of the novel without widening its
scope and thus falls into the very same trap of undermining its own intended
reading far cry 2 just like its source material adopts africa as an exotic backdrop for
the whimsical nihilism of its narrative in doing so it renders the continent as
nothing more than an uncivilized primal playground inhabited by sickness madness
and chaos these are embodied by africa's hostile nature which carries agency over its
invaders and by the natives who are depicted as naive children without
agency in dire need of foreign guidance and yet beyond any possible salvation
a familiar rhetoric drawn from the very same colonialist ideology that the game
purports to critique but actually just reiterates however unlike the novel which does the
same far cry 2 can utilize the rhetorical powers of its medium to not only narrate the inner workings of a
fictional africa as death incarnate but crucially construct a world with a
hidden rule set that confirms these views and arguably teaches them far more
subtly and thus effectively to the player than heart of darkness ever could
it is one thing to read about africa drawing out a civilized man's innermost
desires and savage instincts it is another to engage with a system that
mimics the insanity and rewards acting upon the desires and instincts that it
propagates far cry 2 employs its entire toolbox to convey to the player that africa
punishes civility fosters savagery and ultimately brings death to any outsider
who sets foot in it furthermore this already dangerously essentialist focus comes at an
additional cost as the game's narrative features glaring omissions to accommodate for its messaging but paints
over these gaps rather insufficiently through the fabricated central role of
the private militia in far cry 2's plot the only connector between africa and
anarchy that the game provides explains nothing and leaves us with the conclusion that if human greed is
inevitable then so is the connection between africa and anarchy
essential aspects of actual post-colonial conditions such as inherited colonial infrastructure of
national institutions and systems foreign stake and interference in the political landscape and the economic
influence of international financial institutions transnational companies and
even former colonial powers are never meaningfully discussed in the game there
are no proxy wars no puppet leaders no financial coercion no economic
exploitation not even weapons or money from foreign governments just private independent
mercenaries that fulfill the africans intrinsic desire for violence
by virtue of failing to acknowledge the imperialist framework within which its
story takes place the game frames the everlasting crisis that it portrays africa to be in as entirely
self-inflicted most notably it portrays all significant
ideological movements among the natives as inherently evil with the express
purpose of creating a sense of hopelessness as to the fate of the continent
this rhetoric lets the player come to the conclusion that the jackal was right
all along attempting to remedy the symptoms of the crisis is a lost cause because
africa is synonymous with the sickness itself this fictional version of africa has no
future because it represents the past of humankind and if we want to move on
we must abandon it all together in conclusion far cry 2 is not a game
about africa it is a video game made by a western developer for a western
audience about the fragility and corruption of western values that simply
uses africa as a stand-in for this perceived threat to western civilization
that its narrative requires of course considering the cultural context of its material choosing africa
for this role does not come about by accident and conveys an essential fear
of the foreign the game's post-colonial setting does allow for very few
superficially subversive readings to those found in heart of darkness but the
novel's core ideologies revolving around the corruption of western civilization
through the african other are left untouched
further research could give insight into the subsequent evolution of the series post-colonial messaging in particular
with regards to far cry 5 as the first and as of now only entry in the main
series to be set in a colonizer country rather than a former colony as is the
case with three four and six of particular interest would be the
semantics behind the ever-growing theme of drug abuse and hallucination
pioneered in far cry 3 that have been a consistent staple of the franchise ever
since most notably however readings by postcolonial experts from within former
colonized nations would be far more insightful than my own and have the potential to actually advance the
discourse rather than just use game studies to rehash western postcolonial
conclusions the way i did in this video [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
thank you so much for watching it really does mean a lot to me um let me know what you think of the
format and what you would like to see me and my friend mary take on in future
videos and leave a like if you enjoyed this one over the course of writing and editing
it though i feel like i have to send it into madness myself so i think the next project will cover
something a little less grim until then take care