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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259602: May 7th 2014 at 7:50:14 PM

she has a face tho, and is an npc if you pick the different characters

edited 7th May '14 7:50:29 PM by thespacephantom

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259603: May 7th 2014 at 7:52:08 PM

does she help you beat the elite four

i thought not

edited 7th May '14 7:52:33 PM by MacDuffy

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259604: May 7th 2014 at 7:53:38 PM

that's not saying much

most people who play pokemon beat the elite four

most people who play pathologic do not beat the game

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259605: May 7th 2014 at 7:54:17 PM

she's not even good at helping you beat the game

of course

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259606: May 7th 2014 at 7:55:26 PM

who says she isn't

i was more saying how the elite four are pushovers

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fancywig ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ from heckie Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: It was only a kiss
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
#259607: May 7th 2014 at 7:56:00 PM

more like

the amateur four

GO AHEAD .... MR. JOEHSTUR .......
MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259608: May 7th 2014 at 7:56:13 PM

says the man who can't even beat his own game

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259609: May 7th 2014 at 7:57:23 PM

i can't beat it, because i have not played it

checkmate

[up][up]this

edited 7th May '14 7:57:41 PM by thespacephantom

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259610: May 7th 2014 at 7:58:47 PM

pathologic

even its fans won't play it

edited 7th May '14 7:59:25 PM by MacDuffy

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259611: May 7th 2014 at 7:59:45 PM

i would, if i had the means

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fancywig ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ from heckie Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: It was only a kiss
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
#259612: May 7th 2014 at 8:00:52 PM

what the heck is pathologic

GO AHEAD .... MR. JOEHSTUR .......
MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259613: May 7th 2014 at 8:01:54 PM

it's a russian video game

so appropriately it's depressing, miserable and physically painful to play

edited 7th May '14 8:02:06 PM by MacDuffy

eldritchseer all the loose ends from Cocytus Since: Mar, 2019
all the loose ends
#259614: May 7th 2014 at 8:02:26 PM

well actually klara has magic

also the void is as feminist as it gets

TheSpacePhantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259615: May 7th 2014 at 8:03:01 PM

note how duff avoids providing a rebuttal

check and mate

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259616: May 7th 2014 at 8:04:01 PM

isn't the void the game where you pay scantily clad women to get naked and dance for you

TheSpacePhantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259617: May 7th 2014 at 8:05:32 PM

knowing he is beaten, he continues to dodge my stunning rhetoric

space 1, duff 0

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eldritchseer all the loose ends from Cocytus Since: Mar, 2019
all the loose ends
#259618: May 7th 2014 at 8:08:24 PM

You might think it’s strange that a game in which a host of powerful male characters protect and repress a sorority of helpless little girls could be considered feminist. Is it possible for a game in which women are literally bound, have no power except their beauty, and depend on a male spirit for sustenance, could have a healthy and sympathetic tone for women? What are we to think of a game in which the only female characters are forced to provocatively pose and strip in exchange for the substance they need to live, like a gentleman’s club where the dancers beg for food stamps? Well, it’s my opinion that this game has deep, strong feminist themes in its very DNA.

When feminism and video games enter the same conversation, more often than not attention is drawn to female characters with strength and conviction. Well, no, when feminism and video games mix more often the result is entitled children throwing their toys out of the crib and making fools of themselves. But in the more civilized corners of the internet (they do exist), great attention is payed to Lara Croft, Jade, Samus- the girls who kick ass and take names. And rightly so- a woman who can accomplish any task a man can and doesn’t make a big thing out of it is commendable progress in an industry that is overwhelmingly male-dominated.

However, while these characters and games are great examples of feminist game icons, I think they all fall into the same category: feminist power fantasies. There’s nothing wrong with a good feminist power fantasy, of course, but it’s only a single facet of what could be a much larger jewel. The Void has a more subtle, more literary feminist streak. It’s my belief that The Void can be very satisfyingly read as an allegory for modern feminism- a woman’s eye view of life amidst the patriarchy.

The Void’s gender politics are extremely obvious, and impossible to ignore. The Brothers and the Sisters have gendered names even as factions. They are totally segregated by gender, and the Brothers are the exclusive wielders of all the power there is to be had in the Void. With the exceptions of Echo and Aya, the sisters are prisoners in their chambers, each one both guarded and dominated by their respective Brother. Even those ostensibly “liberated” sisters are only free to move about the Void at the behest of the Brothers. In other words, the women in this game are utterly repressed by the men. This isn’t a coincidence- the singularly male ruling class keeping the female population in their place is a literal manifestation of the concept of the patriarchy, silently handicapping women to benefit a small ruling class exclusively composed of men.

Brother Caterpillar with Sister Ima

Although women in video games being attractive by traditional standards is nothing new, the way the Sisters’ loveliness contrasts with the monstrousness of the Brothers is significant. Divorced from its here strictly physical manifestation, The Void seems to suggest in this way that all women are beautiful (intelligent, courageous, selfless, inquisitive, creative, etc) while all men are ugly (vain, egocentric, hypocritical, self-righteous, pompous, and so forth). This is an extremely strong stance to take, and contrary to the opinions of many a Youtube comments section feminists do not believe that women are superior to men, and certainly not to the degree seemingly hypothesized by The Void. But, The Void does not strive to create an allegory representative of the real world, remember. The Void represents the patriarchy as viewed through the lens of its female victims.

As long as we keep this in mind, the loveliness of the Sisters and the striking grotesqueness of the Brothers will make more thematic sense. Through this lens, many of the character decisions made by Ice-Pick Lodge will come into focus. For example, the fact that the Brothers consider themselves the infallible champions of the Sisters, or that the Brothers consider the Sisters somehow dangerous or threatening, or even that the Sisters resent rather than fear their Brothers. Using this interpretation we can also make sense of the seemingly problematic concept of the Sisters being unable to free themselves: one of the core tenets of a functioning patriarchy is that it is a system in which women are powerless, subservient, and subordinate. If the Sisters were capable of fighting the Brothers themselves, The Void would cross over into the above mentioned “feminist power fantasy”, and would not be representative of a “pure” patriarchy. In order to represent an airtight allegorical representation of the patriarchy, the female characters are necessarily powerless.

He also has an asshole for a face

There are two factions still to incorporate into this formula, though: Colour, and the Guest. Colour is certainly a masculine presence, and Colour in The Void is representative of power. The patriarchy is so entrenched in the Void that the very voice of “power” is male, and what’s more, power itself desires to remain exclusively in the hands of men. In the final leg of the game, Colour begins speaking to Golden Eyes constantly and aggressively. Although Colour introduces the player to the concept of Breakthrough, and teaches you that this rite ought to be performed on a Sister, as the game progresses Colour at first suggests, and then demands with increasing annoyance, that Golden Eyes perform the Rite of Devotio on himself. It is never suggested that a Brother could achieve Breakthrough- although they are explicitly referred to as being able to “take”, they consider Nerva to be poisonous- so Colour’s only option for keeping power in male hands is to ascend through his male vessel, the Spirit.

The final piece in this particular puzzle is the Guest. The Guest is by all accounts outwardly male. He has a masculine body when you view his hearts, and he spends much of the game successfully disguising himself as a Brother. However, the Guest lacks many of the qualities The Void associates with masculinity. He doesn’t speak, which contrasts him with the Brothers and their interminable self-righteous tirades. He also, strikingly, lacks genitals. Don’t dismiss this as censorship or authorial restraint either: any one of the Sisters will stand as naked as a newborn should you unlock all her hearts, and all their sex organs are clearly visible. In these ways The Void differentiates between a character who is a pillar of the oppressive patriarchy- the Brothers and Colour- and a character who is simply male.

But why is the Spirit male at all? The suggestion to me seems to be that overthrowing the patriarchy and creating a society in which women are truly considered equal to men is the responsibility of everybody, including men. In the Void, Colour is power. In a power-unbalanced society, evening the odds requires the empowered party to sacrifice power to the powerless party. The relationship between the Guest and the Sisters is collaborative- it represents men willingly and happily draining their own privilege and power and offering it to women. With this interpretation, it makes one male character offering power to women under the disapproving gaze of ten empowered men that much more significant: according to The Void, the power equalization between men and women is going to come slowly, from a dedicated minority of male feminist allies, and is going to be met with outrage and violence from the vast majority of men.

This makes Master Colour’s description of the barriers between Limits as a “glass ceiling” much more meaningful. By willfully surrendering his own power to a woman, against the wishes of the ruling patriarchy, the Spirit allows a Sister to literally break the so-called glass ceiling, and ascend to a position above that of even the Brothers. Now that we accept that it is the responsibility of men and women both to overthrow the patriarchy, we can make more sense of the Spirit’s systematic elimination of the Brothers. The Void’s contention is that for women to truly ascend, feminist men need to not only empower women, but actively destroy the patriarchal elements in their society and themselves. The Guest- the male feminist- literally destroys the patriarchy in his quest to empower a Sister.

If you can't tell which is which the public school system may have failed you

Finally, the ultimate goal of The Void is coloured, if you will, with feminist (or at the very least, feminine) themes. The Rite of Devotio will allow one Sister to ascend to the Upper Limit- creating life from mere existence. This is tantamount to a kind of birth. If the Upper Limit is where true “life” occurs, then the Void is not only an afterlife, but prelife. You could call the Void a kind of womb, in which there exists the possibility for many different lives, but only one can be chosen. Even the concept of the Void- vacant, hollow, accepting- is symbolically vaginal. The layout and design of the Void even echoes the appearance of a uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. The Sisters in their chambers could be said to be unfertilized eggs. In this analogy, then, Colour becomes seminal. It’s the substance used to fertilize a Sister so that she can ascend to the Upper Limit to be born. After all, in order to perform Breakthrough, the Spirit must reach a state of Turgor- turgidity, the opposite of flaccidity, being the state of tissue that has become rigid with the absorption of fluid. In other words, for humans, an erection. In this light, try not to think too hard about the fact that the oldest Sister is nineteen.

Sister Eli is a fan favourite. She lives in a blimp!

Well, that represents just about the sum total of my most concrete theories regarding The Void. The Void is a spectacularly nourishing experience, and I had to trim away several potential avenues of thematic exploration to save on space and time. In the future, I may return to The Void, and use it as a jumping board to discuss art, love (platonic, familial, romantic, sexual, it’s all there in some form or another, and every player will have a different reaction to every Sister), religion, truth and lies, how we define ourselves against those around us… essentially any topic you care to mention can be meaningfully addressed using the language of The Void. For today, though, I hope I’ve managed to enrich your understanding of this and all games, the way Cannibal K 9 nourished my own understanding of this and all games. Once again, I’d like to implore you to check out Ice-Pick Lodge’s Kickstarter, and for any PC users, don’t forget that The Void is available on Steam. If you good folks have something to add about The Void (and anybody who has experienced it must have something to say about it), whether you’re building on or tearing down something I’ve said above or you’d like to pursue your own avenue of thought, please feel free to drop a comment, or even contact me personally. I could discuss this game to the end of time, so it certainly wouldn’t be an imposition.

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259619: May 7th 2014 at 8:09:12 PM

inb4 tldr

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259620: May 7th 2014 at 8:13:52 PM

you can't throw someone else's opinion at me and expect it to stick

and also tldr

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259621: May 7th 2014 at 8:15:05 PM

called it

also

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MacDuffy from Enies Lobby Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259622: May 7th 2014 at 8:15:57 PM

you know I can't run djs on my garbage laptop anymore

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259623: May 7th 2014 at 8:16:14 PM

i did not know this

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eldritchseer all the loose ends from Cocytus Since: Mar, 2019
all the loose ends
#259624: May 7th 2014 at 8:16:32 PM

but it is an opinion i support

thespacephantom Jamais vu from the smallest church in Saint-Saëns Since: Oct, 2009
Jamais vu
#259625: May 7th 2014 at 8:22:51 PM

jaaaaam

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