Wild Arms: 2nd Ignition

What is the substance of a hero? Playing this game helped me to look at the ideal of heroism much more critically. It also helped me understand better the role of the transcendent function and how it influences communication between psychic domains.

The game features two factions: ARMS, an antiterrorist unit, and Odessa, the terrorist group they try to thwart. Odessa itself styles itself as a “reform party” whose chief agenda is to seek worldwide acceptance of its “pure ideals”. This is immediately symbolic in the context of psychic domain theory, because Odessa is in essence a domain that is on the out-and- out and wanting to recieve social recognition for the validity of its ideas. Of course the unrealistic part is that the antagonist domain is obliterated (rather than restored to dignity and “set along the right path”), and is typical of teenage fantasy epics in that regard. (Der Langrisser did the same thing.)

(I once met a fanatical INTp guy who was akin to a carbon-copy of Odessa’s leader. He despised me so much he programmed from scratch an RPG WITH ME AS THE FINAL BOSS.)

Basically Odessa ends up summoning a demon army from another world which kills the membership of ARMS, which the protagonist, Ashley, has just been inducted into. The short of it is that Ashley invokes the transcendent function in desperation and become a “demon”. (according the story, he is possessed by the leader of the demons who overran ARMS). Over the course of the game the existence of this demon (”Lord Blazer”) proves to be Odessa’s downfall, as it manages to save Ashley and his organization time and time again from certain doom. Odessa’s leaders look upon it with no small measure of dread, calling it the “ominous power that carries destruction.” This is not only a statement of Lord Blazer’s demonic nature, but also of their genuine fear of the creative leader’s innermost vitality and rage. (consider, Lord Blazer’s existence and power signifies not only the existence of the transcendent function, but also the summoning of dual elements and energies while in that state, giving Ashley a totally transcendent quality that is beyond the apprehension o weaker persons.) This only the viewpoint of Odessa’s lesser leaders, however: their leader, Vinsfeld, is as resilient as a tick.

There are other guys, too; like the messiah child who must be sacrificed to ward off disaster (or so the plan goes); the little mage girl whose sister gets trapped in a magic puzzle…. (with more mandalas than you would ever care to count); the prisoner of 666 (…) who thinks he’s got nothing left to live for; a vamp woman who likes robots…; and this “living human weapon” woman who has weapon implants inside her skin…. There’s also this woman who gave her life to seal off Lord Blazer centuries before, who looks enough like Jesus, and talks enough like Jesus, that she must be (another) INFj-ISTp “messianic wise chick”.

There’s also another messiah guy (the “Krelian type” I-will-save-humanity-from-its-evil-nature-even-if-it-kills-me albino dude) who just so happens to be the descendent of the messiah chick, although he’s really morally ambiguous and will do anything to acheive his role as savior of the planet, not limited to decieving his closest friends and mutating his sister into a monster. (definite field-morality focus for this one.)

Well it ends up Odessa’s jolly band of extremists gradually gets beaten back, invaded, what-have-you. They end up ressurecting this flying fortress from who-knows-when (standard “ancient civilization grew fat on its own power, went against duality, died off” bit) and *SPOILERS DAMMIT* just when they think they’re gonna win — just when you think the good guys are gonna bite the dust for sure — in comes Mr. 666 back from the dead with a big-ass gun. Vinsfeld wants another shot, but his subordinates deny it to him on grounds that appear to be geniune concern for the well-being of their leader. Later you learn the truth: they aren’t ANYTHING without their main guy.

With Odessa on the out-and-out and floating over the world with a doomsday gun, ARMS moves to tackle their “Cocytus Corps” (those domain leaders I told you about earlier) Each of them is standing on a “diablo pillar” — a power source for the ship, which they have staked their lives (literally, by symbiosis) on maintaining. The analogy is this: a creative leader is only as strong as his domain followers (his “diablo pillars”, which are called such because Vinsfeld is a blackheart), and without them is pretty well ineffectual. The Cocytus crew refer to themselves during this phase as extensions of Vinsfeld’s person: some of them are really deranged… they all have a common hatred of Vinsfeld, who has apparently cobbled together an assemblage reflective of his own deranged person. (some are shadows, but not all. They are all immanent, however.) It illustrates the substance of the psychic domain leader-follower relationship: the followers are dependent on their leader not only for success but for definition, because only a fool looks at themselves through a maladaptive lense. The leader is both a vessel for their hopes and dreams and the truest expression of their inner selves. (they being projections of the leader’s personality, in their own minds.) Similarly, the leader projects his various self-suppressed traits onto his followers: victory for the followers means victory for the various components of his unknown self, thus victory for him both privately and socially, as a collective unit of the larger social sphere.

With his followers down for the count, ARMS heads off to beat Vinsfeld in his flying fortress. I remember that game had all kinds of strange puzzles… yeah, that’s why I dread playing any more WildARMs games. I remember there being one puzzle I never managed to solve on my own…. (the original WildARMs was much, much worse….) …Back to the story, ARMS corners Vinsfeld… and beats him! Vins goes immanent and tries to take everything with him. Although everyone else escapes, Vins corners Ashley and delays him enough to prevent his escape. Ashley dies in the disintegration….

And what do you know, he meets up with the girl who defeated Lord Blazer way-back-when. It’s a damn compelling case, given the way this woman has managed to survive by means of MEMORY as a residing consciousness, that Jesus may still yet exist somehow. (as the collective Christain unity, perhaps) She explains that she didn’t want to be a hero, and implores Ashley to reconsider what heroism (one of the key themes of the game) really is. Ashley has some kind of crystal with him that allows him to telepathize (a plot mechanic probably modeled after the ideosynchronic nature of domain-think), which allows ARMS to find him and bring him back by some kind of technowizardry. (consider, he’s in another dimension of sorts…. Given that the messiah chick is there this dimension is probably the collective unconscious, which Ashley has become a part of back on his home planet, being a hero who gave his life and all.)

So he comes back and fights off this ancient dragon nuke robot that had been awakened when Vinsfeld’s fortress collapsed. Lord Blazer begins to show independence of will here (at Ashley’s expense), but Ashley contains him — for now. No time to rest though — the KUIPER BELT (yes, that place at the far edge of the solar system) is in fact an “ENCROACHING PARALLEL UNIVERSE” and is invading.

(…)

Yeah OK. So they try to “beat” this idea that they cannot begin to comprehend, and they don’t manage to do it. So the silver haired messiah guy (who was the leader of ARMS from the beginning, being a rich, respected descendent of the Jesus chick) decides to use his sister as a vessel for the parallel universe. (giving physical form to an abstract concept, so it can be beaten up.) I’m not sure what his type is, but I’d bet money it has something to do with the idea of making the unreal real. (there may be more on this later… in the meantime my money’s on meta-N/Ex-S.)

But before he does that, he sends Ashley and the rest of the ARMS misfits on a little scavenger hunt to the ruins of the Vinsfeld’s ship. There they come upon Odessa’s FINANCIAL DATABANKS which reveal that none other than the silver-hair guy was the financial muscle behind Odessa’s reign of terror. Meanwhile the parallel universe is taking over the planet and warping the sky crazily — destruction is imminent. ARMS heads to the center of the planet where they find the silver-haired messiah dude waiting with his sister. He explains that it could have been either ARMS or Odessa who would be the defenders against the Kuiper Belt, depending on who won out in the end, but that he had always been rooting for ARMS privately.

My take on the whole Kuiper belt business is that it is the vengence of a vanquished ideosyncracy. Think about it: you’ve destroyed the leadership of an entire way of thinking… now that you’ve destroyed it, who is there left to deal with the crises. You’ve put yourself at odds with nature: compromised humanity’s collective capacity to confidently simulate a full quarter of reality. And they wonder why the Roman Empire fell….

Although the messiah guy observed that the phenomenon of a cataclysmic crash between the lines was coming (competing urges: one wanting to bring the world together and eliminate all borders, and the other wanting to dominate under a single government and ideology), he did not know what form it would take. He only knew that the scale of the loss of one side’s leadership would compromise human apprehension of the content range of the losing side. Therefore the solution was to, by some means, make the unfamiliar familiar. (still not clear on how he did this…) Then the threatening phenomological range could be dealt with.

So the sister and the silver-hair guy fuse and mutate into a representation of the Kuiper Belt. Ashley and Co. kill it (getting some strange dialogue along the way that I should look over again) and everyone goes home very unhappy. All of a sudden, Lord Blazer awakens and seizes Ashley’s body. The transcendent function is culminating.

Ashley takes hold of the Jesus chick’s legendary sword and goes to battle with the Shadow, Lord Blazer. To understand what’s going on with the Lord Blazer guy and his relation to Ashley, consider that Ashley is ISFp. This means that his shadow is -Si, which due to its inferiority wants to see all harmony between processes obliterated. (fire being probably the purest expression thereof.) There you have it: -Si has been empowered by the terribly bleak +Fe emotions forged in the Kuiper Belt’s tragic destruction (the game’s theme “a hero must sacrifice his heart for peace” comes to the fore here), itself empowered by the nasty +Ti circustances of the manipulation between friends created by the silver-haired messiah dude. I mean really, a situation like that leaves you completely apathetic and open to pretty much anything no matter how bad. Hell, why not just end it all?

-Si (Lord Blazer) moves to take down +Si (Ashley). The way to beat Lord B is to appeal to the heart (-Fi) and use it to empower +Se. (the sword) This Ashley does in truely epic fashion, as hearts around the planet unite to empower the sword and bring out the purity in -Si. In this vein, Ashley surpasses the Jesus woman’s immanent strategy of self-sacrifice and demonstrates the power of the transcendent function — by envoking the ties that bind, one can let one’s own will rest on the will of many, and thereby command the entire human host against one’s psychic foe. And yet, by invoking the strength of others as opposed to oneself, one is forsaking the title of hero that the lone person earns for shouldering their burden alone.

Or could it be, that the protagonist of tomorrow is such because they are the vessel of heroic intent across the hearts of many — the will to unite life and integrity in even balance — and shares in the collective virtue thereof?

Is this not the theme of Barack Obama?

Der Langrisser

(also known as “All About the Transcendent Function”)

There are two english translations of this game in existence, Der Langrisser and Langrisser II. Der Langrisser is a remake of Langrisser II, with a branching story path. Both translations are unofficial.

Langrisser II was translated by someone with a very poor grasp of english… you get the impression their education extended slightly farther than fifth grade. (either that, or they had no confidence in their ability to translate Japanese to English. Either way, it shows.) You get the impression is only half thinking most of the time, as though they are rambling along almost incoherently without any time to really consider what the hell they are saying. Thus you end up with such gems as “There’s nothing better than killing, and there’s still lots more to do!” and “If there is a great strength, then you can bring people together!” Although the presentation is a little off… you can still make some sense of it. Imagine if all of a sudden people chose to be completely dominated by their basest political instincts and determined to start gearing up to kill each other– oh wait, that’s war in general, ain’t it?

The story revolves around two metaphors for the transcendent function: swords of light and darkness. The sword of light, Langrisser, was created centuries before to combat the emergence of the sword of darkness, Al-hazard. (pronouned “all hazard”) This backstory is itself an intuitive allusion to the role of the transcendent function as a counter to the influence of psychopaths. Al-hazard has been acquired by an Emperor, Bernheart. (meaning, as you might suspect, “burning heart” or “burning soul”) Bernheart, an ENFj, desires power by which to bring the world together under his rule, and he sees Al-hazard as the means by which to claim it.

Bernheart is portrayed very unsympathetically in the game’s early segments. Only later do you begin to understand that this is not your typical RPG villian: the man has values and his only wrong is his attempt to impress his own values over those of others’ whose values are equally valid. In this sense he is an extremist, but I digress….

Bernheart’s ambition is to unite the continent of El Sallia under him and to reign over it as the Rayguard Empire. (no clear symbolism in the name “Rayguard”, although it would seem to suggest insulation against a private actor, who could be considered a “ray”. This may be a commentary on the — from one vantagepoint — disruptive potential of the individiual who removes themselves from the group.) At present, El Sallia is divided amongst many independent lords, as is typical in medieval settings. Bernheart’s desire to unite these seperate governments betrays his innate identity as empiricist traditionalist who desires order and regulation at any price. His chief stalwarts are other empricists and many, many libertarians, the most signficant of thse being the mage, Eggbert, and the knight, Leon.

Eggbert is an ISTj and a master calculator of intention. He is the brains behind Eggbert’s push and, as his dual, Eggbert’s most useful adviser. Eggbert lends his support to Bernheart, who was in his origin a soldier (presumably a captain) to create a force that can repell the rise of a sociopath king called Bozel. (the "lord of darkness”) Bozel serves (who else) the god Chaos and has revived along with the rise in energies drifting towards conflict. (for the record, Bozel’s an ENTp “self-aggrandizer” personality who desires that disharmony (+Si) bathe the continent for eternity. He’s also obsessed with bringing about the “legendary darkness”/rule of sociopaths over El Sallia.)



Egbert’s chief motivation is to dissuade what he sees, as an ISTj, as the -Ne threat posed by the returning Bozel. Because his experience with -Ne as an ISTj is so troublesome for him, his egocentricity obliges him to project his troubles with -Ne on the world around him as a whole: “upstart insurgents”, he thinks, are everywhere, and they all have only the most ignoble of intentions. (+Fi) When considering Egbert’s character it is important to factor both his type and his political trait of libertarianism, because traits color type.

The knight Leon’s personality actually differs between the games. In Langrisser II, he’s ESFp; in Der Langrisser, he’s ENTj. However Leon’s type is not as vital to his overall character as is his libertarian loyalty to Bernheart. Bernheart’s ideas are to Leon an important part of his onw character, and he would rather die than see them fail. He is also a descendent of the kingdom Baldea, which guarded Langrisser for centuries, and is the chief rival of the game’s protagonist, Elwin/Erwin. (he’s also a damn tough knight who can pretty well run just about anybody down.)

Also in the imperial entourage are Imelda, the amazon; Vargas “the Valiant”; and several other minor flunkies besides. I won’t get into the flunkies just yet, but Vargas and Imelda are clearly worth examining.

Vargas appears to be an ESFj. I say this because of his determination to be of assistance to others and the shadow of his fate in the main campaign. Vargas death, which he resists violently but is unable to prevent, is one of the game’s most emotional scenes. It is especially tragic because at the time he is dying, birth is being given to his child, whom he wanted very badly to know and to love as a family man. He is denied this fate because he senses that there is nothing he can do to interface with +Ni, chiefly due to his priority of his relationships over observation of objective -Ti conditions on the ground, which suggest he is sure to lose. He cannot distinguish thus paths which will allow him to triumph over his opposition from those which will not, determined as he is to keep his friendships “in context” despite his larger obligations to his own family: suggestions of a greater or higher relationship are de-emphasized in favor of commitment to the role called upon him by his traditionalist instincts. His is a passive immanent mentality. It is the way of passive immanence to leave its mark on the subconscious, however, and in this sense he is indeed survived by his own son and moreover, Leon’s determination to avenge him. Nevertheless, his demise is also the first sign to Rayguard that it may be fighting a losing battle against psychically superior forces. (particularly Erwin.)

Imelda is an uncharacteristically cruel and narcissistic INTj. This is probably due primarily to her +Se: she is a general in charge of an army and is unconfident in her capacity to keep it in character, so she uses force which is disproportionate to the situation to try to keep her soldiers in line. In this sense she has the same problem as Vargas in that she believes herself incapable of supplanting her vulnerable function effectively, and in practice has so little skill with it that she cannot count on her determinative function (+Ni) to give her a helping hand. (as is revealed when she fails to escape from a shipping port before her ship is loaded for departure.) Her critical flaw is that she cares nothing for how she is perceived and is thus unmoved to passion. Although this is typical of INTjs in their youth, she takes it to the extreme. Even in the Emprire winning scenarios offered in Der Langrisser, she is like as not to be killed by her own subordinates because she fails to appraise the hatreds she is engendering. If anything, she feels that these hatreds must be repressed without questioning the motives behind them. This leaves her fatally naive to others’ feelings and ignorant of their psychology, a state of unstable relative coexistance that someone as cold as an INTj cannot hope to sustain indefinitely.

Having discussed the antagonists (we will not use the word “bad guys” for reasons that should be evident in light of the above), let us consider the protagonists. The lead protagonist is a consensus leader named Erwin (Elwin in Langrisser II) who a direct descendent of the protagonist of Langrisser and the heir to the Kingdom of Baldea. In Der Langrisser he is presented as the chosen avatar for the will of the reigning goddess, Lushiris: in this sense he is a prototypical divinely-inspired leader. What of this relationship can we find relevant to the socion? The consensus leader has an uncanny knack for observing common political ground between opposing parties: when he defeats his opponent, they and all their followers will accept his victory as final. They also face a variety of pressures to “set the example” by being basically as pure and noble as possible. (observe, for example, attitudes toward Barack Obama by his opponents in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.) There is a definite sense in Der Langrisser/Langrisser II that Erwin does not have control over his own destiny: he is expected to be all things to all people, and is perceived of as the last best hope of El Sallia by both his allies and his enemies. It is a fierce standard to live up to that only a consensus leader could pull off consistently.

However, Erwin’s portrayal differs between paths. In the Light path he is clearly a consensus leader who even Bernhart learns to admire for his courage if not his ideals. In the other paths, Erwin is variously a creative leader in the Imperial and , and a charismatic sociopath in the Chaos path. The non-Light paths ultimately put Erwin on a collision course with the Goddess Lushiris, whose chosen incarnation is adaptist, and her prophet, the consensarian Jessica, the scale of whch imminently transcendent conflict leaves El Sallia with a mixed outcome.

Yes, Lushiris has picked a side. The INFp Lushiris is an incarnation of duality and thus, is simply desiring the victory of life in whatever form that might best take. However the restraint of a physical — and thus specialized — mind requires that she pick a side in this classic squabble of tradition vs change. It is questionable, however, whether Lushiris really understands the pursuit of quality over quantity at all as an ultimate end. The Independent path is one of just such ends, with Erwin observing the situation before him by means of the 1st transcendent function (which begins to awaken in him when he takes Langrisser at Baldea) and playing the various forces of the world against each other as opportunity presents itself. It is difficult to judge which side, if any, of the consciousness axis Erwin takes because the consensus technology of govenment in El Sallia is clearly monarchy, therefore it is impossible to observe a clear divide between old and new paradigms in El Sallia. We observe only that Erwin is (on this path) gravely concerned about the effect the conflict between Lushiris and Chaos is having on the people as a whole. He cealrly believes the conflict to be a source of destruction and, possibly, civil decay. Erwin endevors to reconcile El Sallia’s mainland with the estranged Demon Tribe, the kind of ethnic-divide bridgework admired by liberals and conservatives alike. It is clear that he values his commitment to the people above his own individuality, because he accepts his defeat of the only person he ever truly loved.