I recently played a video game called Metaphor: ReFantazio (stick with me here). It’s maybe one of my favorite games of all time now, and part of what makes it stand out is this overarching theme it has.
The game opens by talking to you, the player. It breaks the fourth wall and very pointedly says it knows you are playing it and wants to ask you a question. This is very unusual, especially for a story-based game. Just like any book or movie, you, the consumer of the story, are not a part of the story being told. But this time you are.
This is the question it asks:
You have two choices to answer this question. “That’s right” or “Not always.” If you choose “Not always” (as I did), the game responds with this:
Not to get too much into the story of the game and spoil things, but its overarching theme is that stories - fantasy - can have a real effect on the people that consume them. Be it through reading a book, watching a movie or playing a video game. If people are exposed to an idealized world, that can inspire them to bring their own world closer to that vision. The real world may not ever perfectly reflect the fantasy ideal world, but moving closer to it and improving the lives of the oppressed is worthwhile.
The musical Hadestown, while a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, is actually framed as a theater troupe telling the story. At the start of the performance the cast tells you they are going to tell you a story.
As framing devices go, this comes back at the end, after the story itself ends. If you are aware of Orpheus and Eurydice (spoilers for a story written in 530 B.C.), you know it does not have a happy ending. And the narrator addresses this. It’s a sad tale (it's a tragedy), and they know it’s a sad tale, they know how it’s going to end, and yet they choose to sing it anyway. Because there’s power in telling a story, even the sad ones.
In “The Deconstructionists Playbook” there is a reflection by Laura Jean Truman who says: “Stories lend us fire when we are out of our own. They show us how our story – the sometimes too-small feeling story – fits into a bigger story. When we’re tired, stories that speak to our imagination can wake us up, give us courage, give us empathy.”
She goes on to speak on how the bible often is not literal. There’s no historical evidence for many of the stories in the Old Testament, but this doesn’t bring an end to our faith. The bible is filled with stories, and stories have power. Stories of how our God loves us, how people are saved, people overcoming impossible odds. Whether they’re historical or not doesn’t stop them from being empowering.
Stories can inspire change, they help you feel, they help you to forge ahead, even in the darkest of times.
I have been leaning on the power of these stories recently, given current events. People are worried (for good reason) and are scared of what may happen. When faced with trying times and overwhelming odds, it’s so easy to give up. But I offer yet another story to offer hope and power, summed up in the words of one Samwise Gamgee.
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