Can we learn about love from video games?

What is love? Baby don't hurt, don't hurt me, no more. Alright, now that we have that obligatory joke out of the way, I ask again: what is love? Millions of poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and Reddit and Tumblr teens have written trillions of words in regards to love. I myself have written about love as well (shameless self promotion here: my Twilight Fan-fic Spring Blossoms). But what is it? Well, I don't know entirely. I've played dozens of games where love is a central theme, but the question is, have they taught me anything?

Did I learn ANYTHING from these two?

Love, what is it? Well, I had previously written that there are four kinds of love: There's Storge, Eros, Philia, and Agape. A quick reminder, Storge is love between family, Eros is love between lovers, Philia is friendship and camaraderie, and Agape is unconditional love. However, for the rest of the blog, whenever I talk about love, I am referring to Eros.

Love has often been described as one of the best feelings in the world, and is often depicted as such a wonderful state of bliss, that to have love is often considered a goal in and of itself. How many romantic comedies make the pursuit of love their main goal? Similarly, how many games actually have love as an element of their story telling?

My first experience with love in video games was with the Damsel in Distress trope, specifically with Princess Peach and Mario in Super Mario World. It was a very, very shallow love, and even then I didn't really think much about it, if anything. Evil guy kidnaps girl, good guy saves girl. The end. I was five back then, and honestly, I don't think I needed anything deeper than that. Every other video game I played back then had the same story: evil guy kidnaps girl, good guy saves girl. However, even back then I knew just why this kind of story resonated with me so much. It was a simple story, easy to tell, easy to understand. I never really saw these female characters as weak, rather, I saw myself as awesome because I was fighting, and beating, the bad guy in order to save the girl. And if there was ANY misogyny, at all, then it was just the typical six year old "girls have cooties!" thinking that's so normal in boys that age, that eventually went away with time and maturity. That's why I give no serious credence to Tropes vs Women in games whenever they talk about the Damsel in Distress as a negative. 

When I was 11, I played Final Fantasy 7 for the first time, and it was this game that presented love as something more complex than just the standard 'Hero saves the Damsel' kind of story. There were two very different love stories in FF7; one overt, one more subtle. The overt one was the Cloud and Aeris love story, while the subtle one was Cloud and Tifa. Back then, I did not appreciate either love story completely, as I lacked the maturity to really appreciate the subtle nuances that made Final Fantasy 7 so good. I hated Aeris because I saw her as completely useless, while I liked Tifa more because she had huge tits. (Hey, puberty, OK? Cut me some slack here) The way Aeris and Tifa played in the game completely painted how I appreciated them as characters, and it almost shames me to say, but I laughed when Aeris died.

It took me a few years, though, but I eventually learned what made these two characters so different. When I was 20, playing the game again for nostalgia, I grew to appreciate Aeris more. I finally saw what the developers intended for her: she was outgoing, happy, determined, the kind of girl who you could have a drink with and laugh and dance the night away. Tifa was the opposite. She was shy, demure, soft spoken, a real 'silk hiding steel' kind of woman, the kind you could spend a quiet evening with. The love story between Aeris and Cloud is the story of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the girl who brings out the fun loving guy out of Mr Frowns. The love story between Cloud and Tifa, however, is one of the man who faces his inner demons, with his love by his side. Aeris is all about emotional expression, while Tifa is all about emotional support. Aeris is like "Let's have fun!" but Tifa is like "I'm here, if you need me."

I was thirteen when I played Final Fantasy 8, the first game I ever played that had love as its central theme. I remember hating the love story, and thinking Squall was bad ass. Again, this was my immaturity. I didn't understand back then what Squall saw in Rinoa, and why he didn't try for Quistis. Nowadays, though, I can see what made Rinoa so special, and I fully appreciate the story of FF8 as one of the finest Square has ever done. A future blog will be dedicated to why this is so.

But damn, Quistis be fine!

When I was 20 that I was finally able to appreciate love in video games. I first played Harvest Moon on an emulator I had in my laptop back then. It was my main entertainment during my last years of college, you see. Anyway, I played Harvest Moon, and I spent some time trying to romance the girls into marrying my character. Back then, I was very lonely. I had no one to hang out with, my room mates were strangers to me for all intents and purposes, and my life revolved around my studies. So this very simple love, between two sprites, it resonated with me. For the first time ever, I saw that I wanted love. Ah, but again, immaturity was clouding my perception.

I had never had a girlfriend before, and barring some online, long distance flings that typically lasted a month at most, I've yet to experience any meaningful relationships.

It was not until I saw the film Scott Pilgrim Versus the World that I finally learned the most important lesson that a man should ever have to learn: more than love, you need self respect. It was a lesson I needed to learn for a long, long time, and it wasn't until I was 25 that I finally understood that. But there was absolutely no way I could understand this lesson without having to live through two years of self loathing and disappointment. There was no way Scott Pilgrim's lesson could have resonated in me if I didn't have to face myself, who I was, and what I am worth. I needed first to feel the pain of seeing no one worth being with in the mirror, before learning that it's OK to respect who I am.

When I was 26, I was mature enough to appreciate romances, subtle as they could be. I played Katawa Shoujo, and I finally understood. The little nuances that made each path in the game so unique, memorable, good. I could feel the emotions that came from the game, the infamous 'feels' you hear about so often on 4chan.

I sure did!

But, did I learn anything? Yeah, I did learn some things. I learned from the Lilly path that love requires communication and honesty. I learned that you need to open up to the one you love, that keeping your feelings bottled up isn't helping anyone, least of all you. Honestly, I feel like the Lilly path is the one I resonated with the most, because while every path was very well written, I felt more satisfied with Lilly's ending than anything. It most certainly wasn't the sex scenes, I tended to race through them. I understood, though, why others would resonate more with Emi's path, Rin's path, or Hanako's.

And then I read this post: http://static.fjcdn.com/large/pictures/a1/d0/a1d089_3968089.jpg. And it got me thinking: maybe each route resonates with people differently, because we are all looking for something different.

And when I think about it, it makes sense. Not everyone is looking for the same thing in their partners. Some people want someone who can help drive them to become better people. Others want a muse, someone to inspire them to make art. Others want a shoulder to lean on in a quiet night. Others still want someone to destroy them, as sick as that sounds. This is a lesson that was right there in Harvest Moon, Katawa Shoujo, and Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 10. And then, of course, we need to be aware of what WE have to offer others, because relationships have to be give and take.

So, can we learn about love from video games? Well, yes and no. Yes as in, we can learn about the theory of love. We can learn about some things, like emotional honesty and self respect. But some lessons, you can't learn them from books, songs, or pixels on a screen. Some lessons are only learned by getting gravel on your gut and spit in your eye. Some lessons only come from the School of Hard Knocks, because they're the lessons that will stick with you forever.

What little I may have learned from video games about love, does not compare to how much life itself taught me about love. I could never appreciate how much break ups sting until I experienced a break up myself. I could not comprehend how humiliating being stood up for a date was like until I was stood up. Like I said before, I needed to hate myself before finding out what respecting myself was really worth.

What you learn from love in video games is, in practice, not that different from what you can learn from a formulaic romantic comedy, a trashy romance novel, or a silly little love song. You can learn that love is nice. You can learn that love is something you want. If it's a good movie/novel/song/video game, you can even learn some good stuff of substance, like don't cheat, don't mess around with married folk, break ups suck, and so forth. But the most important lessons you'll ever have to learn, about love, or anything else, don't come from any source other than life experience. Life is the ultimate teacher, accept no substitutes.