Great video essay. Loved the style,i think goldmask is what radagon wanted the elden ring to be,he didn't become a god like marika because he couldn't remove himself from the equation of the order of things.
I find myself coming back to this video over and over again. The music, the editing...but the script...my God this essay is so good...the ending is completely transcendant. "Afterall Goldmask has learnt not to speak, is this his final wisdom or admission of his surrender?" 🔥🔥🔥🔥
This really is such an amazing gift to have people respond to your work in such a way. I did not write the essay though I did edit and produce it, and I would like to thank you for these incredibly kind words. Reading this has really brightened my day and has made me excited to create again. Thank you.
Well done, I think you've solved Gold Mask with this one. The philosophy that we must accept the world as it is and stop struggling against what can't be changed fits greatly into Miyazaki's other games as well, where most of the trouble begins with certain characters trying to resist the natural course of the world. Also, really like the connection you made between Elden Ring and the eastern parable of "looking at the finger, not what it's pointing to". There must be something there! 🤔
Thank you very much, but these are not exactly my thoughts. I agree with them but I did not right the essay. You can see the credits at the beginning of the video. And thank you again.
Japanese emperors were and are considered to be living connections to the divine; This is because of their bloodlines being (supposedly) traceable back to the first japanese people (Who were actually gods from somewhere outside this world). When America demanded that the then emperor of japan denounce his connection too divinity, that was for the japanese; America LITERALLY killing their god. Killing gods in japanese games is much more literal than you think.
You should have probably parsed out 'telos' as it was invoked by Aristotle, not by someone who was interpreting teleological reasoning. Then, you could have used the citation you actually implemented to support your assertions after establishing the concept. Also, the florid language choices you have made come off a bit over-reaching without explanation. 'Numinous thought' being referred to as a 'rudiment of epistemology' is one such example. As it is, it is not doing the 'heavy-lifting' you think it is, to use a common phrase within academic philosophy. I'm a studied Pragmatist with a degree in philosophy, whose studies focused on epistemology and language--as well as aesthetics (my senior thesis was "A Pragmatist Guide to Evaluating Iterative Media"). I honestly could not sit through this video essay. I'd be happy to discuss these things, perhaps in a more private manner. I don't mean to insult your work, as I know you have put a lot of effort into this.
I have written it, so you'd be insulting me and not him. Nothing personal though. I'm sorry you didn't like it, perhaps it doesn't help that I have no degree in philosophy (it's just a hobby of mine, I work as a restaurant manager) and that I am not a native english speaker. I merely write the way I think, which might not be the most polished especially after I traslate. To be fair, some people who DO have a degree found it much enjoyable, for what it's worth. Mr. Baylen found it enjoyable - and comprehensible enough - which is why he did me the honor of hosting the article. I'd also wouldn't call it an essay, it's an article I've written for an inside community of gamers in Italy and translated for Mr Baylen. Essay invokes a feeling of self-importance that I hope I don't project, and surely Baylen doesn't project either - quite literally I just liked one of his video, he liked my writing, and we're having fun. I certainly wouldn't call this language florid too, I've heard and red much more pompous jargons. Perhaps it's my perspective. If I have understood the criticism about the phrase "numinous thought is a rudiment of epistemology" the sentence itself isn't of course a definition, but a thesis, thesis which was the subject of the portion before the sentence, that I think explained what I meant. There's things I'm not sure need explaining, such as what "teleological reasoning" is. Again, perhaps traslating makes them sound more obscure than they sound to an italian. That said, any criticism is always welcome.
@@matteoflamigni550 thank you for taking the time to write this reply. Hearing your background fundamentally changes the way I look at what you have written, which is the same reason I included mine. It's great this is a hobby of yours, cheers to that! It's a rewarding one to have, as you already know. Whether someone does or does not have a degree was not my point. It was merely to demonstrate I have certain knowledge into the writing of philosophy essays/articles/commentary--to support what criticism I offered. But now I merely want to point out i got my degree in my thirties after doing part-time classes and working full-time before taking out a student loan and finishing as a full-time student and part-time worker. I don't know your resources, nor anything about the university system in Italy, but perhaps there is a similar path for you. Not because you need a degree, but because it does train you to write like a philosopher--as well as introduces you to all sorts of amazing ideas. Kudos to you, keep 'carving nature at its joints', as Plato said.
@@librarian4life Thanks sir. I won't deny that it is a dream of mine, to have a more structured and comprehensive study of philosophy (which taking a degree would certainly help having) rather than my sparse shards of knowledge. I had to interrupt my course for my first degree (I am at three exams from a degree in law) because I had to care about the family business. I often dream of taking a seat back from the bistrot - cannot do now because of health issues in the family - end my course and start one in philosophy as you suggest. Even if I'm kinda old for that (38) and as of now I dedicated well half of my life to the wine&dine field of work. But I digress. Thanks for the suggestions, the criticism and the encouragement.
While I enjoyed this video, I can’t help but find trouble with the philosophies within it. For example I don’t believe that Religion is coping mechanism or a source of comfort for everyone. And while I would agree that it can create an evolutionary advantage, the thought that while it is an advantage it is nonetheless a delusion harbors under the assumption that a God or some kind of divine will does not exist. Now before I go on all I want here is to create conversation. Not an arguement in which I am insulted and said to be someone who just believes in superstitions and fairy tales. Trying to conform reality to a certain narrative, you could say. Now with that said, the first thing you might say would be that there is no scientific proof that a divine will or God does exist. And to that I would say that nor is there any scientific proof that God does not exist. Nor is there a way to disprove the existence of a God. And personally I believe there to be a divine will of some kind for the very fact that if we are living creatures with reason and logic with us, then logically this means that reason cannot have come from a random origin. If reason and logic had a random origin it would follow that reason and logic itself would not be true reason but would instead be a mere collection of random events taking place. Randomness and chaos cannot naturally produce structure. Am I making sense? Lemme word it this way. “Reason cannot be random. If reason is a random occurrence with a random origin, then logically everything that follows from reason is random, and thus not true reason, since everything it would do is in itself random and therefore there would be no reason to reason itself. Reason is a term we use for a cause action or event with a purpose intent and logic behind it. And randomness is a term we use for a cause, action or event with no purifier intent or logic. If existence is random, then it follows that everything within existence is random including all rational acts that would randomly emerge which is a contradiction. If our brain was a randomly generated structure would it poses any true ability of intent if our intent has a random cause? Wouldn’t everything we think, feel, believe be random including the idea that some things are not random actually be random?” “If there is no reason to existence, then there is no reason for me to believe in the arguement that tells me there no reason. There literally exists no reason to believe that there is no” intrinsic and established “reasons to existence.” And just to add another thing I don’t think concluding that believing in a God is always comforting. You brought up the example of Lovecraftian and yet so many of his stories are about academic material atheists discovering incompressible and malevolent divine beings and then killing themselves in pure terror as their world view is shattered. And for me personally as I do believe in God, I have found this to be both a comforting and a quite disturbing thing. Both a thing of wonder and a source of unease. But, that depends on what one means by God or divine will. The argument that I presented here doesn’t necessarily prove that the God I believe in exists, but it may prove at least logically that there is some divine will out in the universe. And lastly a lot of the philosophies that you presented Golden mask as having are actually quite biblical in nature. With the fact that you established that the truth or objective morality one could say needs to be shown to the world and people need to conform to it as it is reality. But again, how can structure, moral objectivity, truth, exist as it comes from a random cause. If it truly came from a random cause then there would be no truth. There would be no objective morality. There would be no structure as it logically follows. Cause and effect exists in the real world. But assuming that all religious people think of cause and effect as being manually caused by some greekian God hurling lighting bolts down in the earth is a wrong way to think of it. From a biblical example for example, lighting striking the earth isn’t a manually done thing done by a God. It itself was done by a God, but functions on its own as it was established long ago to fit into a fine tuned system that works perfectly with its environment. An environment that might I point out is so specific that if one single thing changes about its fundamental laws or principals it falls apart, goes into chaos, or even ceases to exist. Or maybe I’m just rambling. Just a thought I’d like to express here. Hopefully someone is open to conversation.
As the writer of the article, I could just tell you that the view I'm presenting is merely within the (game's) author's philosophy, which is a strain of optimistic nihilism, and end the issue right there. The fact that I present a thesis (same goes for Baylen who graciously hosted my articles) doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with it. I say this in advance because I wouldn't be put in the position where I'm expected to defend the Dung-Eater viewpoint just because I wrote an article explaining it, or Baylen has to bevause he hosted the article. But that said. Fact is, I do support that same philosophy and I won't hide it. Your reply is certainly no rambling at all - in fact it's well grounded in the many structured criticism that moral objectivist philosophy moves against any postmodernist deconstruction of ethics. Those are serious critiques, but I am afraid that all my counter-critiques wouldn't add much more than the classic counterpoints which I'm sure you know well, taking a lot of space and derailing from the scope of the video too. But since your underlying question seems to be: "am I making any sense?" Surely, you are, to.an extent. But in the end we'd end up agreeing we disagree.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" - Godrick the grafted
I remember it like it ‘twas yesterday
"BEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR WITNESSSSSSSSSSSSS"
The cup next to Goldmask's body in the opening scene always reminded me of the death of Socrates.
Nice video!
I can definitely see that, thank you so much!
Great video essay. Loved the style,i think goldmask is what radagon wanted the elden ring to be,he didn't become a god like marika because he couldn't remove himself from the equation of the order of things.
Glad you enjoyed it. and that is a really good theory!
I find myself coming back to this video over and over again. The music, the editing...but the script...my God this essay is so good...the ending is completely transcendant.
"Afterall Goldmask has learnt not to speak, is this his final wisdom or admission of his surrender?"
🔥🔥🔥🔥
This really is such an amazing gift to have people respond to your work in such a way. I did not write the essay though I did edit and produce it, and I would like to thank you for these incredibly kind words. Reading this has really brightened my day and has made me excited to create again. Thank you.
One of my favourite lore videos on this platform. Genius and blew my mind! ❤❤
Wow, that is high praise indeed! Thank you so much!
Well done. Easily my favorite analysis of Gold Mask. Nice work.
Wow, thanks!
Wow. Just wow.
Thank ye fellow tarnished
Well done, I think you've solved Gold Mask with this one. The philosophy that we must accept the world as it is and stop struggling against what can't be changed fits greatly into Miyazaki's other games as well, where most of the trouble begins with certain characters trying to resist the natural course of the world.
Also, really like the connection you made between Elden Ring and the eastern parable of "looking at the finger, not what it's pointing to". There must be something there! 🤔
Thank you so much!
This was actually really awesome. Goldmasks ending is somewhat enigmatic and your thoughts give me a lot to think about.
Thank you very much, but these are not exactly my thoughts. I agree with them but I did not right the essay. You can see the credits at the beginning of the video. And thank you again.
Plz do more of these, and now that shadow dlc is out the lore has just gotten extremely interesting, including the stone coffins and finger lands
The DLC was indeed extremely satisfying for the many confirmations it gave us. Philosophically there's much to say about Miquella's path, too.
Yes, we are planning some interesting projects in the future!
man this is a really good video i hope your channel grows more!
I hope so too!
Great video, looking forward to your channel growing.
You and me both!
Japanese emperors were and are considered to be living connections to the divine; This is because of their bloodlines being (supposedly) traceable back to the first japanese people (Who were actually gods from somewhere outside this world). When America demanded that the then emperor of japan denounce his connection too divinity, that was for the japanese; America LITERALLY killing their god. Killing gods in japanese games is much more literal than you think.
Entertaining video, thank you for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Love your interpretations~
They aren’t mine, but thank you nonetheless!
More please.
Definitely!
The closest series of Western origin where godslaying is so prominent is God of War I think.
Epic !!!
You should have probably parsed out 'telos' as it was invoked by Aristotle, not by someone who was interpreting teleological reasoning. Then, you could have used the citation you actually implemented to support your assertions after establishing the concept.
Also, the florid language choices you have made come off a bit over-reaching without explanation. 'Numinous thought' being referred to as a 'rudiment of epistemology' is one such example. As it is, it is not doing the 'heavy-lifting' you think it is, to use a common phrase within academic philosophy.
I'm a studied Pragmatist with a degree in philosophy, whose studies focused on epistemology and language--as well as aesthetics (my senior thesis was "A Pragmatist Guide to Evaluating Iterative Media"). I honestly could not sit through this video essay. I'd be happy to discuss these things, perhaps in a more private manner. I don't mean to insult your work, as I know you have put a lot of effort into this.
I have written it, so you'd be insulting me and not him. Nothing personal though. I'm sorry you didn't like it, perhaps it doesn't help that I have no degree in philosophy (it's just a hobby of mine, I work as a restaurant manager) and that I am not a native english speaker. I merely write the way I think, which might not be the most polished especially after I traslate. To be fair, some people who DO have a degree found it much enjoyable, for what it's worth. Mr. Baylen found it enjoyable - and comprehensible enough - which is why he did me the honor of hosting the article.
I'd also wouldn't call it an essay, it's an article I've written for an inside community of gamers in Italy and translated for Mr Baylen. Essay invokes a feeling of self-importance that I hope I don't project, and surely Baylen doesn't project either - quite literally I just liked one of his video, he liked my writing, and we're having fun. I certainly wouldn't call this language florid too, I've heard and red much more pompous jargons. Perhaps it's my perspective.
If I have understood the criticism about the phrase "numinous thought is a rudiment of epistemology" the sentence itself isn't of course a definition, but a thesis, thesis which was the subject of the portion before the sentence, that I think explained what I meant. There's things I'm not sure need explaining, such as what "teleological reasoning" is. Again, perhaps traslating makes them sound more obscure than they sound to an italian.
That said, any criticism is always welcome.
@@matteoflamigni550 thank you for taking the time to write this reply. Hearing your background fundamentally changes the way I look at what you have written, which is the same reason I included mine. It's great this is a hobby of yours, cheers to that! It's a rewarding one to have, as you already know.
Whether someone does or does not have a degree was not my point. It was merely to demonstrate I have certain knowledge into the writing of philosophy essays/articles/commentary--to support what criticism I offered. But now I merely want to point out i got my degree in my thirties after doing part-time classes and working full-time before taking out a student loan and finishing as a full-time student and part-time worker. I don't know your resources, nor anything about the university system in Italy, but perhaps there is a similar path for you. Not because you need a degree, but because it does train you to write like a philosopher--as well as introduces you to all sorts of amazing ideas. Kudos to you, keep 'carving nature at its joints', as Plato said.
@@librarian4life
Thanks sir. I won't deny that it is a dream of mine, to have a more structured and comprehensive study of philosophy (which taking a degree would certainly help having) rather than my sparse shards of knowledge. I had to interrupt my course for my first degree (I am at three exams from a degree in law) because I had to care about the family business. I often dream of taking a seat back from the bistrot - cannot do now because of health issues in the family - end my course and start one in philosophy as you suggest. Even if I'm kinda old for that (38) and as of now I dedicated well half of my life to the wine&dine field of work. But I digress.
Thanks for the suggestions, the criticism and the encouragement.
While I enjoyed this video, I can’t help but find trouble with the philosophies within it. For example I don’t believe that Religion is coping mechanism or a source of comfort for everyone. And while I would agree that it can create an evolutionary advantage, the thought that while it is an advantage it is nonetheless a delusion harbors under the assumption that a God or some kind of divine will does not exist.
Now before I go on all I want here is to create conversation. Not an arguement in which I am insulted and said to be someone who just believes in superstitions and fairy tales. Trying to conform reality to a certain narrative, you could say.
Now with that said, the first thing you might say would be that there is no scientific proof that a divine will or God does exist. And to that I would say that nor is there any scientific proof that God does not exist. Nor is there a way to disprove the existence of a God. And personally I believe there to be a divine will of some kind for the very fact that if we are living creatures with reason and logic with us, then logically this means that reason cannot have come from a random origin.
If reason and logic had a random origin it would follow that reason and logic itself would not be true reason but would instead be a mere collection of random events taking place. Randomness and chaos cannot naturally produce structure. Am I making sense? Lemme word it this way.
“Reason cannot be random. If reason is a random occurrence with a random origin, then logically everything that follows from reason is random, and thus not true reason, since everything it would do is in itself random and therefore there would be no reason to reason itself. Reason is a term we use for a cause action or event with a purpose intent and logic behind it. And randomness is a term we use for a cause, action or event with no purifier intent or logic.
If existence is random, then it follows that everything within existence is random including all rational acts that would randomly emerge which is a contradiction. If our brain was a randomly generated structure would it poses any true ability of intent if our intent has a random cause? Wouldn’t everything we think, feel, believe be random including the idea that some things are not random actually be random?”
“If there is no reason to existence, then there is no reason for me to believe in the arguement that tells me there no reason. There literally exists no reason to believe that there is no” intrinsic and established “reasons to existence.”
And just to add another thing I don’t think concluding that believing in a God is always comforting. You brought up the example of Lovecraftian and yet so many of his stories are about academic material atheists discovering incompressible and malevolent divine beings and then killing themselves in pure terror as their world view is shattered. And for me personally as I do believe in God, I have found this to be both a comforting and a quite disturbing thing. Both a thing of wonder and a source of unease. But, that depends on what one means by God or divine will. The argument that I presented here doesn’t necessarily prove that the God I believe in exists, but it may prove at least logically that there is some divine will out in the universe.
And lastly a lot of the philosophies that you presented Golden mask as having are actually quite biblical in nature. With the fact that you established that the truth or objective morality one could say needs to be shown to the world and people need to conform to it as it is reality. But again, how can structure, moral objectivity, truth, exist as it comes from a random cause. If it truly came from a random cause then there would be no truth. There would be no objective morality. There would be no structure as it logically follows. Cause and effect exists in the real world. But assuming that all religious people think of cause and effect as being manually caused by some greekian God hurling lighting bolts down in the earth is a wrong way to think of it. From a biblical example for example, lighting striking the earth isn’t a manually done thing done by a God. It itself was done by a God, but functions on its own as it was established long ago to fit into a fine tuned system that works perfectly with its environment. An environment that might I point out is so specific that if one single thing changes about its fundamental laws or principals it falls apart, goes into chaos, or even ceases to exist.
Or maybe I’m just rambling. Just a thought I’d like to express here. Hopefully someone is open to conversation.
As the writer of the article, I could just tell you that the view I'm presenting is merely within the (game's) author's philosophy, which is a strain of optimistic nihilism, and end the issue right there. The fact that I present a thesis (same goes for Baylen who graciously hosted my articles) doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with it. I say this in advance because I wouldn't be put in the position where I'm expected to defend the Dung-Eater viewpoint just because I wrote an article explaining it, or Baylen has to bevause he hosted the article.
But that said. Fact is, I do support that same philosophy and I won't hide it.
Your reply is certainly no rambling at all - in fact it's well grounded in the many structured criticism that moral objectivist philosophy moves against any postmodernist deconstruction of ethics. Those are serious critiques, but I am afraid that all my counter-critiques wouldn't add much more than the classic counterpoints which I'm sure you know well, taking a lot of space and derailing from the scope of the video too. But since your underlying question seems to be: "am I making any sense?" Surely, you are, to.an extent. But in the end we'd end up agreeing we disagree.