According to my book, there was a a German philospher named Friedrich Nietzsche during the last parts of the 1800’s. He wrote a lot of strange poetry and essays, in which he went between praising joy of life and the power of the induvidual, to wildly protesting against humanity as a whole, democracy and christianity as well as intellectuals.
What is interesting is two of his greatest books:
Der Wille zur Macht and Jenseits von Gut und Böse.
Does that sound familiar?
He also wrote “Geburt der Tragödie” (Birth of the Tragedy), “Menschliches, Allzumenschiches” (Human, all too Human), “Also sprach Zarathustra” (So spoke Zarathustra) and “Die frölicher Wissenshaft” (The happy Science).
Shall we bet on subtitles?
I don’t know much about this fellow, but he did inspire a lot of poets, novelists and artists in his time, and brought litterature/art into the new, modern era of the 1900’s.
But on the subject of certain subtitles, it would be interesting to figure out the connection. However I haven’t played Xenosaga as it wasn’t released here.
I haven’t played Xenosaga myself, but there may be some sort of connection. The .hack games are based off of the Epithaph of Twilight. So there’s a good chance you’ve got the right idea.
Nah dude, seriously, like you said, he protested against pretty much everything about society, including against the intellectuals who said they wanted to make society “better.” He looked around him and saw only pathetic morons being pushed around by even more pathetic hypocrites who said they were making society better, but were really so out of touch with the rest of humanity up in their world of academia, that they were really just really stupid. He was an angry, disillusioned man who had no dreams that he would change society, so he wrote a lot of brilliant books and papers blasting most aspects of it. He went insane at the end of his life, one of the most beautiful examples of which, when he saw a driver beating his horse harshly with a whip, he ran up to it and hugged the horse around its neck, putting himself in the way of the whip, and burst out crying, lamenting the state of the world and society.
The Will to Power is a cool concept, it states that on an unconscious level, all people want is to make others like them in some way - to sort of, spread their own philosophy as far as they can. And the most “powerful” people are those whose philosophies are spread out the farthest. Like, he was a realist philosopher who thought the high-minded ideals of like, Locke and those fucks was completely unrealistic. And looking at society today, Nietzsche’s rather unflattering observations of humanity and the societies it created are far closer to truth than Lock’s high-falutin’ ideals.
It is no coincidence that the first Xenosaga game is named after Nietzche’s book; the game is full of philosphical, literary and even religious and artistic references- the “dictionary” section of the game explains them.
Also, the whole plot of XS SEEMS to be, that someone found out the truth about reality and a higher existence (heaven?) and now a secret cult is out to fix the universe THEIR way; all the conspiratory events in the game seem to be for that purpose, although the heroes haven’t figured it out yet.
Note that several characters (mostly bad guys) DO make references to The Power of Will.
Re Nietszche, it sounds to me that, while he did try to be objective, in the end he let the weight of Life get to him, just like many other people. I don’t believe the World to be perfect, but neither it is Hell… it is stricktly an individual experience. Hell to some, Paradise for others.
Oh, and in the Sci Fi TV show, ANDROMEDA, there’s a whole race dedicated to his teachings, the Nietzschians.
Thanks guys, it was nice to get some more details about the books and the possible connections to the game. My book doesn’t dwelve much on any induvidual for too long, sadly.
There’s too much stuff about Xenosaga, like U-DO and KOS-MOS’s real purpose, that it’s very difficult to piece together the overplot at this point.
In terms of Xenosaga I, I was playing it a few days ago and realized that Kevin was the 14 year old Mizrahi assistant that the council talks about after their meeting with Ziggy. I don’t know if anyone else got that.
And Nietzsche’s ideas have been notably raped by some, sadly.
I have all the books Nietzsche wrote. I’ve already read Ecche Homo (should have read it last and not first >_<) and I’m currently reading The Antichrist. My uncle has already wrote some 5 books about him and I have 2 of those too. Among all people who had been born on our world, Nietzsche was the wisest. We need more people like him today.
I couldn’t post here without quoting my favorite line from the immoral man:
Nietzsche The higher we go, the smaller we seem to those who cannot fly.
Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana Nietzsche is “realistic”? That’s not the word I’d have picked to describe his allegorical, ornate ravings. Xenosaga, with its focus on “depth,” is doubtless plagiarizing him, though. They might have had the good graces to give a proper citation.
Lots of people seem to plagiarize Nietzche. But Xenogears isn’t as bad as LeVay with that… gah.
Yeah, I killed it accidentally. And I like Xenogears a lot, but the more “philosophical” bits weren’t the strongest thing about the game. I liked the atmospheric scenes, design and characters.
Don’t talk badly about Kant, all true geniouses are mad.
I have always wanted to read something written by Nietzsche. Then again, I have always wanted to read something written by a lot of philosophs: Søren Kirkegaard, George Berkeley, René Decartes and so on.
God is dead, only when people stop believing. I should know, I’m Death.
Originally posted by Nulani Don’t talk badly about Kant, all true geniouses are mad.
Uh huh. I’ll talk badly about Kant because his ideas were stupid. If someone comes into your house seeking refuge from a murderer, and the murderer comes to the house asking for him- you are supposed to tell him where he is, because you are not allowed to lie, according to Kant. Now that sounds like bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.
EDIT: I didn’t say that I didn’t like Xenogears, I merely stated that it wasn’t all as smart as people say- like the “philosophy” in The Matrix.
