The Knot between Death Stranding and the Social Isolation
Our reality has some proximity with the fictional problem that Hideo Kojima created
The enigmatic game of Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding, finally came for PC. Evolved in many mysteries, the director brings on a several imaginative dystopian world, inspired by the book “1984” of George Orwell. In addition, of course, containing lots of other influences — cinema references.
The story shows a fragmented society living in bunkers, putting all their last hopes in a deliveryman named Sam Porter Bridges. A dispirited person that works on the savage superficies of the world, taking packages from one place to another. Everything became like this, because life has passed by a phenomenon named Death Stranding and this point is what caused the conditions of living and thinking in remaining United States society. In this context, the world has some lovecratians shadow creatures, thieves of packages and a rain that speed up the age of things.
Seven months ago, when the game has launched for PS4, we could never imagine that our own world would be transformed in a dystopian pandemic style. It’s visible the drama and the sadness of characters in Death Stranding — and persons in general. All the connection of society is between the Chiral Network — some type of internet of the game world. Sam carries the responsibility to connect all the United States, relieving the isolation from society. That’s the knot between our reality and Death Stranding.
The Mythos became the Logos
Kojima shows this digital way of relation as a solution, but at same time, he made lots of criticism showing that the digital connection is just an idealistic thing, not as strong as the physical connection. People suffering is a huge human problem that will not be solved with digital contact. That just keeps the distance between people. We can see more of this in the book The Transparent Society, where the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han gives an example of the illusion of distance in the digital connection.
“This digital proximity presents the participant with those sectors of the world that they like. In doing so it overturns the public character, the public conscience; Yes, critical awareness. The network becomes an intimate shape or comfort zone. The proximity by which distance is eliminated is also a way of expressing transparency.” HAN, Byung-Chul.
In his book, the author explains that our need of transparency in digital communications is a trouble for society. The tons of information that we receive day by day in internet became a necessity that do not represents the way of our real society relations. This example can be illustrated by a situation in the game where you help a separated couple to marry — carrying the body of a woman until the bunker of a guy. Sometime after the quest, we receive an e-mail of the couple complaining about marriage and the life living together. With distance, we cannot see the negatives, just the positives — the internet gives an illusion of perfection.
In an article about Hideo Kojima in New York Times, the journalist Adrian Chen, compares the principal function of delivery packages in Death Stranding as the book The Myth of Sisyphus, of the French philosopher Albert Camus. This book shows the absurdity of living, and represents this through the Greek myth of Sisyphus, a man who is doomed to live pushing a giant rock up in the hill. When he reaches the top, the rock rolls down the hill and he repeat the process eternally. This comparison makes sense because of our principal role in game: carrying packages over the places. One principal function that seems to be boring and purposeless for the player.
But, I will go further to say that our actual context has a little of The Plague, a book of Camus that shows the philosophy of living in a pandemic. Of course, Death Stranding is not exactly about a pandemic, but has this mysterious phenomenon named Death Stranding that changes worldview in all possible ways, in geology, chemistry, physics, theology, biology etc. As the pandemic, Death Stranding became a mark in story of humankind and the characters of this fictional world that keeps trying to solve this puzzle. We realize this as the term “New Normal”. This term symbolizes what we are living now, after some months keeping distance and trying to avoid contact. It is our new way of life, a new normal.
“Thus, for example, a feeling normally as individual as the ache of separation from those one loves suddenly became a feeling in which all shared alike and — together with fear — the greatest affliction of the long period of exile that lay ahead.” CAMUS, Albert.
As the philosophy that Camus brings inside your books, Kojima try to bring his own meanings on sidelines of his game, showing critics about political, society, internet and videogame industry. He talks about this in the interview of the New York Times article referenced before, where he talks about his own sensation of solitude and this problem around the world.
“It’s not just America, but the problem with the E.U. in Europe, or the actual world, connected by the internet, where people are very lonely” KOJIMA, Hideo.
We can see in the narrative of Death Stranding the problem with social isolation, and the idealistic plan of Bridges to reconnect the world. This sometimes sounds like a messianic solution, which covers some political critics. At the same time Kojima shows the positive side with his own game system, where players stay connected and helping each other, building online items that represents a string, like stairs and roads. This keeps players connected and avoids the sensation of solitude on the game.
Last reflections
To finish, I am not here to bring the answer for this question. However, I think it is valuable to explore these themes, which are symbolized in a cultural product and sometimes reflects more of our society than we think. About life with covid-19, all we can do is wait for the scientific solutions and think about the future. Living in the real world is not as bad as living on the dystopian of Kojima’s mind — maybe if you have Trump or Bolsonaro as presidents. At least, we can have more hope for the ending of this social isolation, but following the thoughts of Camus, we always have to expect the absurd of living.
“From now on it can be said that plague was the concern of all of us.” CAMUS, Albert.
References:
HAN, Byung-Chul. A Sociedade da Transparência. Editora Vozes, Brasil. 2013
CAMUS, Albert. O Mito de Sisífo. Rio de Janeiro: Bestbolso. 2019.
CAMUS, Albert. A Peste. Rio de Janeiro; Bestbolso. 2008.
