A Guide to Finding Meaning in Elden Ring

About this video

• Video Title: A Guide to Finding Meaning in Elden Ring
• Channel: Projectionist
• Speakers: [Not specified in the transcript]
• Duration: 00:25:14

Overview

This video explores the philosophical underpinnings of the game Elden Ring, focusing on how the game's mechanics and lore encourage players to find meaning in struggle, death, and rebirth. It draws parallels between Elden Ring's concepts and philosophical ideas from Plato, as well as religious and scientific thought, to illustrate themes of order, chaos, convergence, and causality.

Key takeaways

• Miyazaki's View on Death: Elden Ring's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, aims to make death in games meaningful, not just a mark of failure, by finding joy in overcoming struggle and reflecting this in the game's world.
• Law of Regression vs. Law of Causality: The video contrasts these two concepts in Elden Ring. Regression represents the yearning for convergence and oneness (like entropy or the frenzied flame), while causality represents maintaining individuality and order through a chain of relations.
• Gold as a Symbol of Stagnant Order: Gold in Elden Ring represents an idealized, but ultimately rigid and life-suppressing, order. It becomes a representation of life itself, leading to the subjugation and destruction of anything outside its grasp.
• Platonic Influence: The video connects Elden Ring's themes to Plato's ideas of an ideal, eternal model (like the "Eternal City" or the "Cosmos") that is imperfectly translated into the material world. This concept of microcosms (parts representing the whole) is central.
• Death and Rebirth as Metaphor: Elden Ring uses the cycle of death and rebirth not as a sign of hopelessness or destruction, but as a microcosm for individual and societal success and failure, encouraging growth and adaptation in a changing world.