- Aug 23, 2023
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Well, that's a very valid perspective. But certainly one can read it in a multitude of ways. The game does tell you to stop, but that same game has people telling you that trials are necessary for one to deserve heaven. Himawari tells you that things have to happen in a certain order, and that she'll try to minimize your suffering, but it is necessary to some extent. Also, who is telling you to stop? And why? Cause in that same game there are many that tell you to actively ignore these messages.While my other argument is weaker, and I think there is very much a difference between selling the best version of yourself (wooing) and declining to tell somebody that you're molesting her sister.
But the above is the meat of what I think the game is getting at. Because, there very much is still consent to talk about in the above case. I'm leaving for a trip soon, so I don't have the time to do it right now, but how many times so far as the game tried to get you to stop playing? It tries to shame you to stop. It wonders why you won't stop. It begs you stop. It condemns you for not stopping. It warns you that we aren't close to hitting rock bottom of degradation yet.
That's not even mentioning all the "Ending" screens we get. Little off ramps for the player.
Maybe it's because I come from a performance background, but I think we often times overly use literary crit to talk about games but theater crit is just as applicable, if you consider "the player" as "the actor." In theater crit there is an idea of audience culpability. That the catharsis of the tragedy comes from the audiences participation in the acts committed on stage.
And that participation comes from their silence. They are free to interrupt and condemn the performance at any time.
I don't really know how else to read this game but a study in this mentality. We all downloaded this because we wanted to masturbate. Our introduction is our nieces vagina cutting us. We all choose to stay even though character after character tells us they feel like they are trapped.
That's what I think that line about "never having had consensual sex" is about.
By that same token, what's the alternative? Does the game stop if the players turn it off? Or are you simply choosing not to see where it goes? Does another user take control? Are you not what little remains of Akira's will and without you he'd go back to being a puppet? If a game was something else I think it would much rather be a book than theater. Your audience can indeed do whatever they want, and are only bound by what's expected of them as an audience. But a reader can only stop reading the story - as the gamer can only stop playing the game. The day Selebus harasses the people that pay him with "stop giving me money, you're responsible for this tragedy", then I'll probably agree with the culpability of his audience to such an extent.
As it is, the culpability of "stop playing the game" is confetti. Obviously Selebus doesn't want you to stop playing. The story will go on with or without you, this is a hollow provocation. You're not responsible for any of this because this is not an rpg, no one here is Akira because there isn't enough leeway for him to differ that much from what choices there are. There is only one true path in LiL, and the few choices you can make are "I choose to miss events". Well, is someone better than the other for shielding their eyes with their hands during a play? How is one culpable for wanting to see what the author has written?
I recognize your vision as valid, but there are others imo.
same.Just to make it clear that I didn't download this game for that reason, I already had basic knowledge about what this game was and the main reason I keep playing it is to see the end of the story from Akira,Maya, Yumi and now Io. At no point in this game after the first day did I see it as a porn game.
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