Imagination Aperture (What Remains of Edith Finch)

Imagination Aperture

I started (and finished) playing "What Remains of Edith Finch", an indie PC storytelling game, last week. A friend (not to call him a tinder date) recommended it to me and I added it to my Steam wishlist. When there was a promotion available, I made sure to get it promptly.

So you play in first-person as this young woman, Edith. Edith decides to go back to her childhood house, after her last living relative's death. The game is built around piecing together what happened to each member of her family, who hailed from Norway and believed to be afflicted by a terrible curse, throughout the several generations of the genealogical tree.

As you proceed through the house, from room to room, you basically live out each character's last moments and find out how they died, ranging from great-grandma Edie's moonlit walk over the shore, to baby Gregory's accidental drowning in the bathtub.

It is a gorgeous game with a very powerful message, filled with a peculiar outlook of human nature and behavior – the ending itself is praised as well, for being both sad and somewhat positive.

But this isn't a review. Although I recommend you to play it, I'm not writing this out of interest in the game itself – rather my connection with a specific section of it.

One of the last Finch family members to die is Edith's older brother Lewis. Lewis is the only member to actively take his own life. He left the house (presumably) as a grown young man and started working for a canned fish factory. The job was incredibly tedious and his days were spent hauling fish from left to right, to chop off their heads, and dispatch them onto the next processing section – even for the player it's tedious, as you simply move the mouse from left to right and then upwards. Rinse and repeat.

Lewis grew to become depressed. The weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders and with a (mostly) unoccupied head. He sought help and underwent therapy, before finding an escape – his imagination.

His days continued, but were spent from then on imagining, designing and creating stories and fantasies and grand-arching tales within his head. In there he wasn't bound by anything – it was the only place in the world where he could truly be free. So he became more and more invested in his fantasy. He went on adventures, conquered kingdoms, eventually met a handsome prince (in my version of the story), created music and crafted a world, in which he is king.

Up to this point, we can all relate. Using our imagination to escape reality and the 'mundaneness' of our daily activities is something we all do.

But then things escalated, for Lewis. He let go of reality. Nothing else mattered, only the never-ending task of building his fantasy and continuing the dream. He didn't eat and refused to leave work, even at his mother's request – he simply didn't care. He wasn't there anymore, his soul had become part of his dreamworld. Eventually, he gives his body to the fantasy as well, and his life is ended.

The reason why this story resonated so much with me is because I can relate to it. Maybe as much as the next one, but growing up with mental illness, the worlds I crafted in my head were all I had. They were the only constant throughout my life. To this day, they still offer me more feeling and meaning than most *real* things. Which even beckons the question – which one is truly real? I know which one I prefer.

I'm scared I'll end up like Lewis. I'm scared life will bore me or scare me away so much that I will escape forever into the dream and forfeit everything. I'm scared I'll end up laying my head on the train tracks. And I don't fully know how to manage the balance – when my fantasies are shattered, when I stop believing in them, my worst crises happen. It drags me down to the very bottom. So I don't allow for them to shatter - I need them.

In my fantasies I have everything I could ever desire – adventures, thrills, joy, attention, pride, magic, despair, friends and loved ones, a boyfriend... And when things get dark (like this moment), my dreamscape is where I draw my strength from. So I can't let it go.

So I believe in Lewis. I bought his story. I can see how his story could become mine. I'm seeking the same help he sought – I just pray that this world is enough for my mind to contend with.

Your ever-relating to fictional characters,

-João A.