The Crooked Man is not the best game ever made. It is not the most sophisticated game, it is not the most graphically impressive game ever made, but it still is one of the best games you will ever play.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
In The Crooked Man, you play as David Hoover. David's a nice guy. He's a decent man, works as a clerk, earns his own money. He also has a mother with a tumor in her brain that's caused her to go senile, his lover abandoned him, and his dream of becoming a pilot is pretty much dead thanks to him being colorblind. To try and get over how much his life has disappointed him, he moves into a shabby apartment that is in need of repairs. During the night, he experiences several paranormal phenomena that inspire him to look for the apartment's previous tenant. Thus begins the story of The Crooked Man.
David's journey first takes him to the Hotel Ruhenheim (Which means Rest home in German), an abandoned hotel that held special significance to the previous tenant. In here he first encounters the eponymous Crooked Man: a vile monster with a crooked neck, an unstoppable force that aims to kill David. In this level, we also learn of David's failed romance with the woman whom he planned on marrying. Because of his meekness, especially compared to her fiery attitude, David's girlfriend, Shirley, abandoned him. During his trek through the hotel, David meets someone in a similar position: a woman named Sissy. Sissy's boyfriend had also previously left her, and she's come to the hotel to search for a memento from her boyfriend. After several events which I shall not spoil, David gives Sissy a speech on what it means to love, to lose, and to keep going.
The game then takes us to Julius Stone Law School. Here, David meets a young man nicknamed D, who has failed the Bar exam a total of five times, and is currently vying for his sixth attempt. Once more, David finds himself menaced by the Crooked Man. David also confronts his failed dream: to become a pilot. I had mentioned earlier that he had been unable to become a pilot, due to his color blindness. David, until this point, remained haunted not just by this failure, but by the efforts he made to overcome his shortcomings and become a pilot regardless. He cheated on his sight test, breezed through his courses, and became top of his class, only to be found out and expelled on the day of his test. D has also gone through something similar. All his life, D dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Unfortunately, once he got into Law School, he learned of his one glaring weakness: He simply didn't have the book smarts to be a lawyer. He tried and tried, he studied like crazy, dedicating every moment he could to hitting the books. He took extra classes, he took tutoring, he asked for direct help from his professors. And what did he achieve? He barely graduated, and has failed the Bar exam a total of five times. He tries and tries, but ultimately keeps failing. It is here that David makes peace with his failure, and encourages D to move past his shattered dream, while subtly encouraging himself to move past his own failure.
The game next takes us towards an abandoned hospital. While here, David meets a boy nicknamed Fluffy, whose mother is missing. During his trek through the hospital, David is confronted with a horrid memory: one night, when his mother's condition took a turn for the worse, her dementia caused her to forget about her son, which caused her in turn to believe that David was a stranger who meant to harm her. In a moment of absolute weakness, David attacked his mother, and would have murdered her if not for his friend, Paul's, sudden intervention. From that day forward, David felt his mother did not love him, that she had abandoned him. Fluffy, during their time exploring the hospital, begins to feel abandoned by his mother as well. David tries encouraging Fluffy, but they are attacked by the Crooked Man. David fails to make peace with his past at first, but he eventually does.
Who is David Hoover? He's a guy with a failed love life, a mediocre job, an unfulfilled lifelong ambition, and a dying mother. He's trapped by his own failings, his own meekness, and his own mediocrity.
He's also one of the kindest, most dependable guy you could ever meet. He goes out of his way to make sure Sissi and D are alright, warning them of the Crooked Man as soon as he can. He goes above and beyond the call of duty to protect Fluffy from this vile monster. He saves D's life at his own risk! He rescues Sissi from death twice! He actually fights off the Crooked Man and pushes him off the roof of a four story hospital to protect Fluffy! David is so immersed in his own sadness, his own sorrow, that he fails to recognize his greatest strengths, attributes, and his blessings. His friends love him, and often go out of their way to make sure he's alright. He has a job that allows him to have his own place. He's kind, an attribute women often find attractive.
That's what depression is like. We become overwhelmed by our own negative feelings. Through our minds there is an echo, repeating a list of our worst flaws. "I'm weak, I'm unworthy, everyone would be happier if I were gone." After a while, sometimes depression goes away, but often, we sink deeper into our own negativity. And we keep torturing ourselves, inching ever closer into the edge of this abyss. And when you finally stare down, that's when it hits you, an idea that a healthy person would find repulsive: suicide.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd be lying if I said I did not identify with David up to a certain point. Often video games give their heroes some extraordinary reasons to act depressed, extraordinary tragedies that affect their lives. An example would be Ryu from Breath of Fire 1, who lost his village in an attack from the villains of the game. Or Fayt Leingod from Star Ocean 3, who was experimented on as a child to act as a weapon against aliens from another dimension. But David? What happened to him can happen to all of us. Depression? A lover leaving you? A senile parent? A dream that went unfulfilled? That's normal, everyday things that can happen to anybody, and often does. These are real life tragedies that often go ignored by those who do not suffer them. And often, we are told that these things are no big deal. "Oh, your mom is suffering dementia? Somewhere in Africa a woman has died from war, think about THAT while you whine! Oh, you can't get into the college you wanted? Let me play you a song on the world's smallest violin while we think of those starving kids in Asia!" Often people downplay the things that get them down, because we often mock depression. Wangst, we call it. Excessive whining. And that is one of the many, many reasons we often do not seek help when we're depressed.
Depression is a real thing. People kill themselves because they often hit that moment, that Event Horizon of Despair, that sends them spiraling into a vicious circle of feelings of self loathing and entrapment. People kill themselves to escape from this vicious circle. And trust me when I say that the moment you hit that level of sorrow, the moment you see your own death as the ONLY relief from this much sadness, that is one scary moment.
The abyss is dark and seemingly bottomless. We often hold onto something, the ledge, to keep from falling in. But we don't need to fall.
When we're in our darkest hour, we need to find our light. We need to focus on what we are good at, what our best virtues are. Life is tough, that's a given. We fail more often than we win. It is when we are down that we need to find the strength to get back up. Most of the time, we do this by ourselves. But sometimes, the pain is so great, we are unable to get up. We've fallen, and we can no longer get up. That's when we have to find to remind ourselves of who we are. Like David, we need to remember our greatest strengths. For David, it was his kindness. We must also overcome what we feel is our greatest weaknesses. For David, he thought he was meek, a doormat, but he proved to be anything but when he faced down the Crooked Man. And just as important, we need the people who love us. When David had become suicidal, it was Paul who came to his rescue. Paul and his wife Marion drove for a whole day towards a place they had never been to, all to make sure David would be OK. Just like that, we need to learn to trust the people that love us.
In South Africa, there is a philosophy, called Ubuntu, that is defined as thus: "I am who I am because of who we all are." We humans need to take care of each other, to treat each other with kindness. We can not, should not ignore or ridicule another person's sorrow.
This is what The Crooked Man is trying to tell us. Do good for others. Your sorrow is NOT trivial, because you suffer from it. Kindness and empathy are some of the best qualities a person can possess. You are not alone in your suffering. Your dreams may go unfulfilled, but when that happens, find a new dream. Emotions are a good thing, do not think less of yourself for having them. You will, eventually, stop loving the one who hurt you. Keep the people that love you close, do not doubt them. And most importantly: don't kill yourself. You are better than you think you are.
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