"Frozen," Story Structure, and the Art of Letting Go

We've gotten lucky here in Boston this year. You may remember the Winter-to-End-All-Winters last year, where snowfall broke every record on the books. We all dreaded it happening again. A chill ran down the spines of everyone in the Northeast U.S. as the leaves began to change in September, because we all knew what followed. It seems that the Snow Gods had been appeased, though, because it's now April and we've gotten by pretty unscathed.

Well, I mean, it's snowing as I write this, a few days into April, so that's weird. But it's too little, too late to make up ground at this point. Better luck next year.

Outside of my actual window right now

Something about a nonwhite Christmas, a Christmas of Color, if you will, just didn't seem right this year. I found myself getting nostalgic for the 47 feet of crystallized water we had to navigate last winter. I decided that I had to turn to the only people who would understand my plight. A people who knew the harshness of being buried by an unrelenting freeze, being shut in from their loved ones, and resorting to talking to annoying snowmen to keep their sanity; The people of Arendelle.

Ah, Frozen. The 2013 phenomenon that took every little girl's imagination by storm. I mean, a Disney movie with TWO princesses? How could they resist the allure? Frozen was lauded as Disney's return to form. A revival of the brand. A stepping out from little brother Pixar's shadow. A film that the world's children loved and the world's adults kind of tolerated because they had to. No more would Disney have to sheepishly admit that they had anything to do with Home on the Range, because they had Frozen, dammit. And everyone loved it, and it was the best movie ever, and Disney got all of the money.

Except it's not. Frozen is just not an exceptional movie. It's fine. It's pretty good. But it's full of glaring problems and outright oversights. The writing has no depth at all. Case in point: This movie likes to believe it is deep and metaphorical, but it contains exactly zero metaphors. The theme of love being represented by an open door comes up a lot. What could it refer to? Perhaps exactly that? Perhaps exactly the closed door that Elsa used to separate herself from her sister for years? That's not a metaphor. The closed door can't represent the closed door!

I have a theory that the script was written and submitted, and Disney's board of Money-Makers injected a bunch of ideas into the script that didn't quite mesh, but made it appeal to more kids. I want to be clear that this isn't meant as some kind of "takedown" of Frozen. It's my attempt to see where the story doesn't add up. I think the big problems with the script fall into one of two categories: Plot oversights and inconsistencies, and plot threads that lead to a climax that never occurs. Let's start with the oversights and inconsistencies.

When Anna gets blasted by Elsa's ice for the first time, how does the king know where to go? He just says "I know where to go," and then they ride out into the woods to meet the dumb trolls. How does he know this? Is this a family illness? Has every generation had to go to these trolls to get help at some point? If so, why are Elsa's parents so inept at this? Is there an uncle who could help her develop these powers? Some kind of Ice Gandalf? If this isn't an ongoing problem, how does he know where to bring her at all? Is this an innate skill all royals inherit, like cryomancy? Some kind of Stone Troll radar? It seems very specific. 

Also, why do we need the trolls at all in this movie? From a plot perspective, why are they here? They don't add anything but a forgettable song.

"Because, David," I hear you saying, "They're Kristoff's adopted family!"

Ok, but if we never saw little baby Kristoff, we'd never have to explain that he's an orphan or needs to be adopted. If Kristoff had just wandered into Oaken's shop as Anna was buying supplies, that would be a great introduction. We learn everything we need to know about Kristoff in that scene. He's an ice salesman who is a big, dopey, lovable oaf and he probably fucks his reindeer. There's no reason for him to witness the first scene with the trolls. It doesn't come up again. He doesn't mention it casually to Anna later. We don't even have to see him in Arendelle on Coronation Day because he gets one throwaway line. Kristoff's intro is fine at Oaken's. And why would these trolls bother to adopt this kid at all, if his future job is going to be harvesting ice, anyway? That's the path he was already on. Being adopted by these tumorous annoyances did nothing to improve Kristoff's station in life. Wait, did they even know he was an orphan? Did they steal Kristoff from his family? Hmm...

"Ok, fine," you say. "But without the trolls, Anna would have remembered that Elsa has powers! What about that?"

Well, if you remember, Elsa accidentally beans Anna in the head with the ice. If it's SO IMPORTANT to the plot that she not remember Elsa's magic, have her slip into unconsciousness for a while and have her wake up with no knowledge of it. Bam. Ice powers forgotten, Elsa still becomes a recluse. But even if Anna DID remember, wouldn't Elsa's constant need to push her away be even more dramatic? Wouldn't that make the reunion at the end that much more meaningful? But I digress.

I think baby Kristoff and Sven were inserted into that first scene solely so Disney could cash in on Baby Sven stuffed animals.

Hell, Sven may have been added to the movie only so Anna would have an excuse to have a carrot on-hand to give Olaf a nose when they met. And so that way your kids will want Baby Sven AND Adult Sven stuffed animals! But that may be a little conspiratorial.

There's also Marshmallow, the abominable snow-monster that Elsa creates to get Anna and Kristoff out of her ice castle. Why does she create him? Because she doesn't want to hurt Anna again and needs some muscle to bring her outside. So there's no reason Marshmallow would want to try to kill Anna and Kristoff shortly afterward, going against Elsa's wishes when she created him. It's like they just needed an action scene there.

I can already sense some of you muttering "It's for kids! Who cares?!" Well, please go tell Don Bluth or Roald Dahl or Maurice Sendak that stories for kids don't matter and I will be waiting here with a pack of frozen peas to numb the slaps you get across your face.

Up until now these have been minor complaints. Nitpicks. They make sure that the movie won't ever be as good as Aladdin or The Lion King, or Zootopia, but they don't ruin the movie for me. Suspension of disbelief and all that. But, no. My biggest complaint is that the plot seems to lead in a direction that it either abandons, or was changed at some point in production. This results in plot threads and implications that lead to the wrong climax. Let's go back to that part where Elsa and Anna's parents meet those trolls.

Anna is unconscious. Elsa feels terrible because she hurt her sister. The leader of the trolls sees the injured little Anna and asks if Elsa was "born or cursed" with her powers.

That's a small sentence, but it does a lot of world building. It says that there exist people in Arendelle and beyond that this troll has at least heard of who have had this power before. What's more, they can either be born with it in a completely random manner (as I'm assuming nobody else in their family can shoot icicles around), or be cursed with the ability by someone else. It implies that there are others out there, and by planting it so early in the movie, it suggests something large that'll come into play later. It plants a little nugget of expectation in your head.

Things progress as normal. Nobody wants to Build a Snowman, and before we know it, it's Coronation Day. Anna is excited to see people For the First Time in Forever, and the dreamy Prince Hans shows up and sweeps Anna off her feet. We learn later that Hans plans to have Elsa and Anna killed so he can inherit Arendelle and their booming ice harvesting market, or whatever. Everything is going well for him. Anna is into him, and she's playing directly into his gloved hand.

What a catch!

When he catches Anna at the Coronation Day dance, this is how it happens. Check that out. Look at what's on display here: A gloved hand. That's weird. Why would they show that? Who else would have caught Anna? The Duke of Weselton? It's no surprise when he's revealed.

But who else wears gloves?

Oh, that's right. Everyone but Anna. You got me.

Anyway, from here, Elsa freaks out and loses control of her ice powers, and after the crowd jumps back, we get this single-character reaction shot.

Is he scared? Surprised? Intrigued?

Anna and Hans follow her to the fjord where Hans notices that it's freezing. When the duo double back to Arendelle, snow begins to fall on the kingdom, and it does for the remainder of the movie. Anna assures Hans that she had no idea about Elsa's powers. Once in the courtyard, The Duke accosts Anna as Hans watches, demanding to know "Are you a monster too?"

"Is there sorcery in you, too?!"

And so we get Elsa's power ballad as she Dr. Manhattans an ice palace up in the mountains (Also, how can she create ice through her shoes when gloves were enough to inhibit it? Are her feet more powerful than her hands?) as Anna realizes that Elsa "wore gloves all the time" and that must be how she kept her secret hidden.

My favorite scene from Frozen

After a bit, Anna and Kristoff arrive to tell Elsa that "Arendell's in deep, deep, deep, deep snow," much to Elsa's shock. It's as if she's surprised the kingdom is, well, frozen. She managed to control her powers just fine in isolation up here in the mountains, after all. Have you seen the castle she built? That's some structural integrity. No foundation problems of self-doubt there, no sirree. That's weird. Huh.

From here, Elsa accidentally freezes Anna's heart and Anna runs back to her prince to get her cure. Hans dismisses the help, tells Anna it's all been a ruse, and a very interesting scene occurs.

Hans goes to the window and stares out at the frozen wasteland. In the reflection, his face is superimposed over the snow, suggesting some kind of connection.

He turns back to Anna, monologuing, of course, and removes his glove.

Remember earlier when I asked who else wears gloves, and you said "everyone"? Well, you're right. But only two people are shown having their gloves removed, let alone in a dramatic, story-heavy scene.

Hans slowly walks toward Anna and snuffs out a goddamn candle with his bare hands before dumping water on the fire.

And... nothing happens. Hans was going to marry Anna and have them both killed. End of reveal. It's a GOOD reveal, don't get me wrong, but I believe that everything about Hans sets him up to have the same set of powers as Elsa. The line from the troll leader, the fact that he directs Anna's attention to the freezing fjord that they just happen to be be standing on the bank of, the fact that he's in frame when Weselton interrogates Anna, to the fact that Arendell was completely covered in snow despite Elsa's ignorance, to this whole scene. Every little thing adds up. And the movie just, well, lets it go by without giving it a second thought.

When I saw Frozen for the first time and watched this scene, I thought it was brilliant. Hans has ice powers too?! What a reveal! Everything started to make sense! The uneven approach to Elsa's powers could be glossed over because SHE wasn't the one doing it most of the time! Hans manipulating the people from inside the kingdom to fear and hate the queen was a great power play! But no. Instead, we have a half-assed "well, I guess I know how to control them now" at the end for no real reason. Hans is punched in the mouth, and the nobles applaud, despite the fact that the last time anyone interacted with him, they were all under the assumption that he was behaving under the noblest of intentions.

The sisterly bond and the twist on the act of love are both wonderful ideas and something that really needed to be in a movie, but I just can't get over this buildup to nothing. I can't not see it as either an enormous oversight, or a purposeful rewrite that Disney forgot to erase all traces of. 

Overall, Frozen ends up being just an ok movie. Nothing special, despite the marketing blitz. The songs are pretty solid, for the most part. The way the dialogue is spoken sometimes, you can tell it was clearly written with the intent of being adapted to the stage the whole time, and that's fine. Vertical integration, and all that. And hey, Olaf turned out to be not nearly as annoying as I feared. On the other side of things, I can't help but to feel there was some meddling by the higher-ups going on. Kristoff's adoption still makes no sense and is shoehorned in. The trolls are a cutesy marketing idea that probably came from the fallout of 2010's Despicable Me and their ever-present Minion characters. However, I will argue til the day I die that "conceal, don't feel" is the most on-the-nose, transparent, trite, stupidest piece of dialogue I've ever heard, and this movie is sure to repeat it in part about eight times. If you tried to pass that off in any script workshop, you'd be laughed out of the room.

But Zootopia is great. You should definitely see that.

Snow Woes

Here in the American Northeast, we're preparing for the first major snowstorm of the year. This is all fine and good, and, as I've discovered since moving here, it comes with the territory. On the other hand, it's giving me some terrible flashbacks to last year's record-breaking snowpocalypsemageddon Winter Storm Juno that we endured only thanks to discreetly cannibalizing our neighbors and using their hides as extra blankets. Let none of it go to waste, I always say!

In January of 2015, my friend, Matt, was getting married to his longtime girlfriend, Carissa. My girlfriend, Steph, and I received our invitation in the mail, and after my insistence that just because I'd met Matt and the other invitees over the internet, it wouldn't be weird and we should go. Steph bought it. We booked our tickets to sunny California and waited.

Well, that snowstorm somehow found out that we'd booked tickets and decided to hit that week. Steph and I were both working, but she kept me updated throughout the day as she refreshed the airline's website. The long-and-short of it was this: the snow had begun falling quite furiously, and our flight had been canceled proactively, because everything was going to be covered in up to three feet of snow on that first day, and with 70 mph winds, cleanup would have been impossible for days. Luckily, there was one lone Little Plane That Could that was planning to fly out at 7pm that evening. All we had to do was bump the flight up a couple days and come home a couple days early. No harm, no foul. Work was closed for the rest of the week at this point anyway. So we booked the tickets and came up with a plan: I would get home first, so I'd throw all of our stuff into a suitcase so we'd be ready to go by the time Steph arrived. Steph's end of the bargain was to find us a ride to the airport. I called Matt, who I assume was wearing shorts and sipping something out of a pineapple and told him the news as I trudged through the beginnings of the storm. I'd see him that night. Suck it, Juno.

Things went fairly smoothly after that. We said our goodbyes, got to the airport, checked our bag, and took our seats. We even took a cute photo on the plane to put on Facebook, even though everyone tells you not to do that because that's how your house gets broken into.

The winds had picked up by now and snow was starting to gather in piles on the tarmac. The pilot assured us that we were all so smart for taking this flight out, because even though it was Monday, the snowfall would be so heavy that there was no way anyone would be leaving the airport til Saturday. Suckers. We collectively patted ourselves on the back and buckled up, put our trays in the upright position, and listened to the dumb “what to do in case of an emergency” speech that they give every time, even though if there's an emergency we're all dead anyway.

The pilot drove us out to the runway where he told us we'd have to be de-iced before takeoff, as the snow whipping around the plane and strong, freezing winds could cause some problems for a tin can that wanted to go into the sky. Who knew? The pilot assured us that it would only take 15 minutes and we'd be up above all this. Everyone in the cabin gave high-fives liberally. The crew drove the de-icing crane over. A guy sat in the seat with a hose between his legs. He looked like a fighter pilot in a World War II biplane shooting the slime from Ghostbusters 2 all over the plane. The de-icing process took 45 minutes. We started to grow restless, but the siren song of California (probably sung by the Beach Boys) kept us calm.

Finally, the de-icing was done. The captain urged everyone to get to their seats and buckle up, because the de-icing only lasted for a few moments, and if we weren't in the air before our window closed, we would have to start all over again. Everyone did, but the plane didn't move. Our captain addressed us again. The snow was worse than anticipated, so we'd have to de-ice again. The WWII crane returned and we all sighed. The captain reminded us not to get up, as that escape window was no joke. To apologize, the flight crew gave everyone a bottle of water. I got mixed signals.

Another 45 minutes later, the plane rolled to the edge of the runway. I texted everyone I had been giving my running commentary, “Here we go!”

The plane stopped. The captain came over the intercom. “Well, folks, we got a computer error. We're going to have to go back to the terminal so I can get the tech crew in here. Then we'll de-ice one more time and get you all to sunny California!”

The crowd cheered. This must be what it's like to be brainwashed.

The IT crew boarded the plane. Three or four guys all went to the cockpit to look at gauges and buttons and levers. I got up to use the bathroom, because that bottle of water was really a bad idea. As I was standing in the tiny stall, the captain addressed us again.

“OK, so we're going to restart the plane and that should fix everything.”

So an IT team fixes a plane the same way I fix my laptop when it can't find my mouse. Excellent. The plane turned off. I peed in the dark.

By the time I returned to my seat, the IT crew was bringing the plane back to life and standing around fairly confused. The reset hadn't worked. I wanted to suggest a factory reset, or a paperclip that they could poke into that little hole in the back, but they didn't appreciate my joke, and paperclips aren't allowed past airport security.

The bad news? We were still getting an error and our captain didn't want to risk our lives on a plane that was sub-par. The good news? They had a second plane ready just in case this happened.

Everyone reentered the terminal as they prepped plane #2. Some of the flight crew made snow angels on the tarmac. A few non-believers on our flight decided to cut their losses and go home. Apparently they decided they could wait until Saturday. At this point, everyone began turning their phones back on to check the weather and complain on social media. The big new development was that the roads would be shutting down after midnight. It was too dangerous to plow without the roads being salted, and it was too late to get the salt out there.

We all got on plane #2 and took our seats. The captain, having checked the weather and complained on social media, himself, addressed us again. Yes, the roads were closing, but that sounded like a problem for Northeasterners. We were all going to be drinking those pineapple drinks on Venice Beach. If not, we'd all be home in bed by midnight and we wouldn't have to worry about road closures at all. But that wasn't going to happen. We were smart enough to stick it out. It was time to get this bird in the air—after one more de-icing.

After another 45 minutes of reenacting the radar jamming scene in Spaceballs, we taxied out to the runway. We stopped. We waited. At this point it was after midnight. We'd been on two different planes in five hours. The roads were shut down, everything would be closed until Saturday, and we hadn't gone shopping in weeks, prepping for the vacation. The intercom came on, broadcasting dead air through the cabin. Then a sigh. “Yeah, we're getting the same error we got on the other plane, ladies and gentlemen. It's just not going to happen tonight. I'm sorry.”

We all groaned. Now what were we going to do? The plane rolled back to the terminal and we all de-boarded. Through the windows of the airport, billions of snowflakes looked back at us, probably with high-pitched giggles, but those were drowned out by the howling of the 70mph winds.

On the way to baggage claim, a few of the airport employees handed out vouchers for free cabs. We'd all have to go home. The airport was closing because everything was canceled, and the nearby hotels were all full of people whose flights had been canceled hours ago. Steph and I grabbed our suitcase and headed to the door where the cab lane is usually three cars deep, all trying to usher you in to bring you to your destination.

It was desolate. Not one cab. What good was a cab voucher when nobody was out driving? Angry fliers began calling cab companies to come pick them up. Steph and I stood in the line, about 50 people deep, to wait for a car. Ahead of us, a woman bounced her screaming baby. He wore nothing but a onesie and snot streamed down his face. The woman balanced a huge suitcase and a stroller with her other hand. Seeing that the woman didn't have nearly enough going on, the airport gave her a complimentary car seat for her child when and if a cab ever came. The baby screamed. I realized I had left my sweatshirt at home, because I was going to be in California.

After some time, a lone cab approached the terminal. The first person in line hopped in and, after a brief exchange with the cabby. Other passengers continued to call taxi companies. After another long dry spell as we all shivered and the baby continued to cry, a man in a trenchcoat made an announcement: No taxi companies were sending people to the airport because they weren't getting paid. They were only getting vouchers.

At about 1:30 am, a van approached. The driver asked where people were going, and the crowd, either pitying the overburdened woman or just sick of the crying, mucus-y baby, said she should take it. She shuffled to the front of the line with her four things in tow and explained to the cabby where she was headed. Turns out it was two states north, and about an hour and a half away. The cabby asked who else was heading north. Steph and I were! We rushed to the exit with one other young girl and began to load our collective excess of baggage into the trunk of the van. The young girl plopped down in the back seat. Snow stung our faces as the rest of us took refuge behind the van. I wished I had my sweatshirt. The baby had to sit in the center row, since it was the only seat with a buckle in it. Mom couldn't get in, obviously, until the baby was in. I couldn't get in until mom has comfortably in the back seat, tending to her screaming baby, who could now add “freezing” to “sick and tired.” But before we could get the baby in, we had to assemble the car seat.

The woman with the baby continued to attempt to calm her slime creature as the cabby ripped the plastic off of the new car seat. The mom directed him: “The cushion has to go over the plastic shell, but-- not like that, that's upside down. See the holes? The straps need to go through them. No, they need to line up so the straps can go through. No, you have the padding backwards. I--” She looked around. “Can you hold my baby?” I glanced around. She couldn't mean me. She handed me the baby. He screamed louder, adding “Being held by a stranger” to his list of grievances. I did what I could with my motherly instinct, shushing him and bouncing him. Mom assembled the car seat and strapped it into the van. As she placed the mandrake-covered-in-lung-pudding in the seat, it became apparent that the child was far too big for the seat. Mom tried to buckle him in, but he cried louder. The only way the baby would fit, would be to fold him in half. Mom called it off and assured us she'd be fine. She and I climbed into the van. Steph took the front passenger seat.

Steph and I are a quick 15-minute drive to the airport on a normal day. The icy roads and slow going ensured that this would not be a normal day. We inched up the first big ramp out of the city, sliding our way across two lanes of non-existent traffic. The baby soon fell asleep, gurgling his sickness into the small heated van.

At 3am, the cabby stopped at the foot of our street. Getting any closer would require going downhill, and once down there, we weren't so sure he'd be able to get out. We said we'd make a run for it, sweatshirt or not. Steph and I pooled our money together to give him something of a tip. He really went above and beyond, even promising the other passengers at the airport that he would return. We grabbed our bags from the trunk and wished them good luck.

The end of our street, likewise, it about a thirty second walk. In sub-zero weather with three feet of snow on the ground, it might as well have been the arctic. By the time we had sprinted to our house, I was shaking from the cold.

We, along with the rest of the city, were snowed in for the next two days. The airport opened late on Wednesday, allowing us to escape the frozen wasteland before the pilot's promised Saturday. When we boarded the third plane of the week, Steph and I had both begun to develop familiar runny noses.

As for the mom and her baby? I think they're still out there driving somewhere.

Understanding Undertale

Warning: Given the subject of this essay, expect spoilers throughout.

Part 1

It's tough to call something a “masterpiece.” When you assign that label, the subject instantly becomes singled out and scrutinized in a vacuum. A masterpiece challenges convention and begs to be looked at alongside its more conventional contemporaries. Context is always important. Take Chuck Jones's “What's Opera, Doc?” for example. It was voted the best cartoon of all time by 1,000 animators in the business for the way it elevated the art form to a new level. If you try to explain a Bugs Bunny cartoon to someone who has never seen one before and use “What's Opera, Doc?” as your example, you'll be left with a person who is probably confused and maybe even upset. Why would someone watch cartoons if they're so sad? What's with the singing? Why does that bald guy have an oversized suit of armor? By looking at this single example, you miss the convention of the Bugs/Elmer Fudd relationship. You lose the context of the methods the hunter has used for years to best the rabbit, and the way Bugs has outsmarted him at every turn. You miss out on how “What's Opera, Doc?” took that formula and flipped it around completely in order to surprise the audience and open them up to the larger picture of what animation can do. Undertale is, I believe, a masterpiece. And to explore how they did everything right, it's important to see what its contemporaries did wrong.

In 2013 a company called Eden Industries wanted to pick up the Mother series' mantle with their game, “Citizens of Earth.” CoE was an attempt to create an RPG with a “modern setting and (the) humorous tone of Earthbound,” according to the Kickstarter page. On paper, the idea was great. Fans of the Mother series were old enough now that they had jobs in the industry and wanted to take hints from their favorite game to forge a Western take on a JRPG that, in turn, was a JRPG take on Western culture. The trailer for CoE showed off the irreverent humor, an eclectic cast of characters, and familiar battle sequences that stirred up visions of Dragon Quest and Earthbound. We had a series that looked like it could deliver and fill the Mother-shaped holes in our hearts. A new group of developers could carry Itoi's torch. The stage was set, and the bar was high.

And, by all accounts, Citizens of Earth should have worked. The game opens with, in typical RPG trope fashion, the main character, the Vice President of Earth, being woken up by his mother. The game knew from the outset exactly how to skewer the beloved genre. It was as if Mel Brooks tried his hand at game design. The VP was funny, the battle mechanics were interesting and engaging, and the game knew its fanbase, sneaking sly nods to Earthbound in for those of us in the know. But the problems with CoE became apparent very early on. Load times grate on your nerves, especially when you're trying to get familiar with a new area. Directives can be vague, frustrating, or not exist at all. This is particularly frustrating when moving the plot forward requires a certain character and the game gives no information to do so. However, the real failings of CoE lie in the details. The characters, as varied as they are, have no real personality. They just spout their lines, and only exist as tools for you to use to battle wave after wave of the same few enemies, made doubly frustrating by the insane respawn rate. Items are unimaginative and useless. You'll be swimming in the same few HP-restoring coffees and donuts for the whole game. It also makes collecting chests more of a compulsion than an exciting experience, because an overwhelming majority of the time, they contain nothing but another coffee.

There's also an inherent problem with having an aloof main character like the VP who is impossible to identify with, and only bland support characters to back him up; The plot loses any momentum. And some of you may be saying “Well, Ness or Crono never even speak, and those are two of the best JRPGs ever.” And to you, I say that Ness and Crono are silent protagonists, and the player projects themselves and their intentions onto them. Those protagonists are also surrounded by a myriad of characters who DO have a stake in the game. They become your moral compass. Jeff and Apple Kid and Lucca and Frog become rallying support for the cause. CoE's very talkative protagonist who thinks only of himself is surrounded by characters who have almost no personality at all. So at no time does the player feel compelled to move forward, because none of the characters seem invested. Nobody in the game seems to care or understand what they're doing, so why should the player? The game also makes the mistake of thinking that ramping up the insanity of the plot is the same as raising the stakes. You find yourself on an alien spaceship eventually and for the life of me, I can't remember why. It's as if it happens simply because Earthbound has aliens. Like it's expected. And that's the biggest sin that this game could have made; it did what was expected of it. It didn't rise above its peers, but instead, it sold itself on the promise of being a Mother successor and only succeeded in being a serviceable, run-of-the-mill RPG experience, albeit with a sense of humor. Again, when the great Mel Brooks makes a parody, it's because he loves and understands the source material. He know how to make homage and also how to get you to identify with his characters. There's a heart in his films that comes across, hand-in-hand with the insanity. Citizens of Earth takes a half measure in heart and the experience suffers for it. It got the wackiness right, but Eden Industries making a parody more along the lines of “Epic Movie” than “Blazing Saddles.”

From the moment you begin Undertale, the game greets you with visual cues, all before you even enter your first battle. The pixel art is simplistic and made up of a few colors. It looks as if it could fit in with the likes of the SNES brethren that inspired it. Like in every Mother game, Undertale's protagonist wears a striped, two-tone t-shirt. Like in those traditional JRPGs, Undertale's protagonist is mute. And the bed of flowers the protagonist wakes up on looks very familiar to a recurring flower in Mother 3. You may not even notice that your brain is taking all of this in, but from this moment on, Undertale has you exactly where it wants you. And it doesn't let go.

The most clear-cut example of subversion of expectation is in Undertale's battle system. Similarly to Citizens of Earth, the enemies are presented in full view, just like in Dragon Quest or Mother games of old. You're given a couple options from the menu, as in an old Final Fantasy game, and you're led to believe that those commands are the same as always. For those new to the genre, Flowey, the unassuming first enemy of the game, instructs the player on the unique “bullet hell” minigame that occurs on every enemy turn. A red heart, a stand-in for the player, is confined to a small box where projectiles move around and try to make contact with you. Flowey instructs the player to gather up the “friendliness pellets” in order to proceed, and with that, Undertale has introduced its central mechanic by lying to the player. If you figured it out and dodged Flowey's attack, you feel smarter than the game. If not, you're rescued by another NPC who will teach you how to “really” play the game. Either way, you're playing by the game's rules, even if you don't know it. If you suspect Undertale is just going against convention and you play along as if it's some kind of anti-RPG, Undertale knows that, too. The game knows what you know, and it knows how you can plan to overcome the obstacles it throws at you-sometimes literally. If you've caught on, be assured that the game knows this and it already several steps ahead of you. After you've met the friendly NPC Toriel, you settle in and begin to learn how to play from someone you trust. Then the game goads you into accidentally killing her.

Undertale is layer upon layer of tropes, reversals of tropes, self-referential humor, fourth-wall shattering dialogue and characters, and surprise after surprise after surprise. Even if, in a panic, you reset the game because you've accidentally killed your new friend, the game knows. It knows if you've played the game before. It knows if you've closed the game in the middle of important dialogue. The game of Undertale extends beyond the act of playing it. It's not just a timeline of events from the intro to the final boss. Undertale is an interplay of experimentation and branching paths of human choice and itself. The game invites you to try new approaches, then calls you out on it. The world of Undertale is a post-postmodern look at not only RPGs, but video games, morality, and gaming culture in general. Every time you think you've figured out the game, the rules change. Undertale is the world's best Poker player and you think you can take them on because you've mastered Go Fish.

By the time you reach the game's first “real” boss fight, one half of the comedic skeleton brother duo, Papyrus. The rules change, and the bullet hell becomes something of a Mario-style platformer where your heart must leap over giant bones to avoid damage. The end of the battle showcases the action box expand ever-upward as your heart leaps over all obstacles. It's hilarious, unexpected, and just a hint of the surprises to come. Each boss has a different take on battle, and with each one, conventions fall away. And yet, the game still manages to surprise you when the final boss (on one of the paths) shows itself to be a photorealistic monstrosity of eyeballs and thorns that is as shocking to see revealed as it is disturbing to look at. “But of course,” you think. “This isn't REALLY a SNES game. It's been a computer game the whole time. It doesn't have to adhere to any rules.” Undertale has tricked you again.

You can play Undertale like a traditional JRPG, but doing so demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to play video games. Inventory management gets skewered when you try to pick up some mystical object, only to be told that your inventory is full. You drop the item, and that dropped item runs off with the mystical object in question. Even the “But thou must” options become irrelevant in regular dialogue, because the real choices aren't even delivered in that format, opting for an “actions speak louder than words” scenario. In battles, you can kill every frog or depressed ghost you come across to gain EXP and cash, but the game openly challenges you on it. By the time you reach the end, Sans, the second of the skeleton brothers, reveals that the traditional EXP and LV, present in so many JRPGs, aren't exactly what you might have believed. Altering something so integral to the role-playing experience puts everything into perspective. Undertale holds you personally responsible for your actions. After all, that blank slate of a character was you. It wasn't Ness or Cecil or the Vice President of Earth. The purposefully nondescript protagonist is a proxy for you, and Sans makes sure that you know that there is no separation, in his eyes, between you.

There's a heart in Undertale that makes it stand out. It plays to the fans of the genre by including ineffectual minibosses in the tradition of Final Fantasy V's Gilgamesh in Papyrus, it features an homage to Final Fantasy VI's famous opera sequence with the killbot, Mettaton. A village of cute, Mr. Saturn-esque creatures called Temmies, and a sequence in Dr. Alphys's lab that seems straight out of the Chimera Lab in Mother 3. It helps you grow to appreciate the characters by giving them dialogue that changes with your choices. One particularly touching scene, if you plan to kill everything in sight, has Sans beg the player not to continue, because he knows that deep down they just want to “finish” the game. On the other hand, going out of your way for a perfect ending, nets you a similar sequence begging you not to replay, because as things are, all the friends you've made are so happy. This, in itself, is a huge mixed signal, because the alternate approaches to the game and branching character directions and actions just beg for experimentation and replaying. But that's exactly what Sans warns against. This isn't just grinding on FF6's Veldt to learn new attacks, or mowing down wave after wave of FF4's Bombs to get a worthless-but rare!-secret summon. It's about the choice and the weight of every small step you've taken. And that's where games like Citizens of Earth got it wrong. Playing a Mother game isn't fulfilling simply because it's funny. The fandom hasn't grown and expanded because they laugh at the little things. Undertale shows that being laugh-out-loud funny is done best when there are high stakes, your characters are likable and full of personality, and you care about the characters you're interacting with.

Years ago, Roger Ebert asked if videogames can ever be considered art. The internet exploded and rallied against him with example after example of game design and art and emotion, but Undertale is the most concrete example yet. Undertale delivers an experience that can only be delivered in a video game medium. A film never changes due to your mood, but Undertale in particular shows that the game is a reflection of the player. It's a novel in the way you read into and experience characters and motivations. It's is an art exhibit, from the small things like character art and music to its lessons on morality and the consequences of your seemingly innocuous actions. It's an interactive puzzle in the way it invites the player to explore the very data files it's contained in to discover it's biggest mystery.

As, I mentioned, there is a bed of flowers that the player wakes up in at the beginning of Undertale. They look strikingly similar to the flowers that feature in Mother 3 as a symbol throughout most of the story. At first it bothered me because this game has no right to compare itself to Mother 3, let alone be so bold as to appropriate one of the most prominent and emotional symbols in the game. But it does. Toby Fox and Undertale have proven that they understand exactly what it means to make a video game in the modern day. Undertale stands on the shoulders of giants, and it looks down on them with fondness, appreciation, and determination.

An Overview of Undertale

Warning: This is a review/discussion of several role playing games, expect spoilers to be used liberally.

You're generally in one of two camps when it comes to “Undertale.” Either you peruse Tumblr or Reddit or Twitter for new fan art and secrets on a daily basis, or you're already moving to close this tab because you're just sick of hearing about it. If you're in the second camp, I get it. I've been there. I was there with “Five Nights at Freddy's” and with “Steven Universe” and with “Adventure Time.” The fanbase gets so rabid and excited that they talk about nothing but the subject in question weeks after you first heard about it and shrugged it off.

But “Undertale” deserves most of that hype. It's that good. On its face, it's nothing revolutionary. It's riding the nostalgia wave that “Shovel Knight” and “Retro City Rampage” and now even “Mario Maker” have exploited. It presents itself in a familiar 16-ish-bit graphic style that hearkens back to a simpler time in video games. Maybe to when you were a kid, when everything was flat and brightly colored and chip-tuned. But that's how “Undertale” first subverts your expectations.

It's no secret that I love RPGs. “Undertale,” I believe, is a great entry in the RPG genre, a genre that has been stagnating for a long time. It's no surprise that people have been flocking to MMORPGs while the latest single-player Final Fantasy game feels like a bloated, pretentious mess. In order to understand what “Undertale” does so well, we first need to look at the RPGs that led us here, specifically those on the NES and Super NES.

An average battle in "Dragon Quest."

Most video game genres give you all the information you need at the outset; Mario must save the princess, Mega Man must beat the evil robots, and Simon Belmont must kill Dracula. That's all the plot you get, and that's what drives you to reach the end. The RPG genre did something a little different; it slowed things down. At the beginning of the story you have almost no information, and by moving forward, you gain not only knowledge, but the drive and the strength to reach the end. The game draws you in and gets you invested. Drape that idea in a medieval theme, and you've got nearly every RPG that surfaced on the NES and most of the Super NES. The Ur-example of these tropes is “Dragon Quest” (called “Dragon Warrior” on the NES). “Dragon Quest” introduced several RPG mainstays that exist even today: the romantic swords and sorcery setting, fire, ice, and lightning magic, killing slimes for money, and then using that money to buy better items, and winning experience points to gain levels. “Dragon Quest” was also dialogue-heavy, allowing the player to interact with Non-Player Characters (NPCs) for additional information and to give the player some illusion of agency in a scripted setting where all outcomes led to the same path. Giving what the game considered a “wrong” answer would loop the dialogue until the “correct” one was chosen. These are the basics of the console RPG. Dragons were slain, worlds were saved, and nobody ever questioned why a ninja would be walking around in a medieval feudal town.

Dragon Quest's dialogue "options."

Enter Shigesato Itoi, a Japanese essayist-turned-game designer. His first game, “Mother,” was released for the Famicom (Japan's NES equivalent) in 1989. Gameplay-wise, “Mother” is a pretty standard RPG. It features random encounters, a mechanic in which monster parties are encountered without warning on the world map, a party of warriors from different backgrounds, and towns with shops that sell the newest equipment to help battle the latest monsters. Where “Mother” differs is in its presentation. Magic is now psychokinesis, swords are baseball bats, bows and arrows are slingshots, slimes are rowdy neighborhood dogs, and medieval European-style castles are now American-style cities. While “Mother” played with genre norms, it remained local to Japan. Western audiences didn't experience it for decades after the NES became defunct. “Mother” was a fun distraction, but the norm marched on, through four more Final Fantasy games and two additional Dragon Quests.

By the time the Super NES rolled around, RPG mainstays were cemented into the genre and everyone basically knew what to expect from the newest Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. “Final Fantasy IV” pushed the genre by introducing dynamic playable characters who seemed to learn and change, all while adhering to the script. Advances in technology made the stories and characters better, but nothing really evolved beyond cosmetics. The fantasy RPG had been perfected and had become predictable, and with art of any form, the moment it becomes formulaic is the moment it becomes ripe for parody.

The story of “Mother 2”, aka “Earthbound”, is an interesting one. Like its predecessor, it almost remained a Japanese exclusive, despite its very American influences. When the decision was made by Nintendo to publish it in America, they weren't even quite sure how to market it. They settled on the “weirdness” factor, saddling “Earthbound” with the unfortunate tagline “This game stinks!” and showcasing a sentient puddle of vomit, a minor character in the story, as the mascot for the ads. What's more, none of the Dragon Quests appeared on the Super NES, despite still being released in Japan. Only two of the system's Final Fantasy games were brought over, and Nintendo of America decided that RPGs just weren't really for American audiences. The high price-tag or “Earthbound,” due to the inclusion of some bonus items, like an air freshener and player's guide, didn't help much. “Earthbound” was dead on arrival, but despite that, it began to gather a dedicated fanbase.

"Earthbound's" New-Age Retro Hippie wants to fight. (Note the similarity to Dragon Quest's battles)

But why? Mechanically, “Earthbound” doesn't do anything that revolutionary. Battles still look like they did back in “Dragon Quest,” but coated with a layer of LSD-laced paint. You still fight bosses and buy weapons and save the world. But “Earthbound” thrives in the small stuff. The weight of an evil alien from the future destroying humanity is always there, but it never seems to loom over you. Common enemies are light and funny, including Mad Ducks, UFOs wearing hair ribbons, and, of course, the New-Age Retro Hippie. NPCs like Mr. Saturn and Dungeon Man make you laugh at their absurdity, and the exaggerated musical score, full of a cacophony of horns, gives every scene the same tension you'd get from Elmer Fudd recieving a wedgie. All of this is wrapped in a bittersweet layer of interpersonal relationships, from Ness and his worrysome mother to Dr. Andonuts and his awkwardness around his son, Jeff. The game is light-hearted, but the fun distractions never take away from the creepy zombies that haunt Threed, or the cultists in the ironically-named Happy-Happy Village. “Earthbound” takes what the game presents as a serious threat and has your semi-mute group of preteens trying to distract themselves with small laughs before they have to deal with it. It has equal parts goofiness and darkness, and that spoke to people. Those fans who played “Earthbound” before it was a phenomenon still clamor about it today, partially because of the fresh paint on a tired genre, and partially because of the way the humor vs. seriousness can hit home.

When “Earthbound's” sequel, “Mother 3”, was announced, expectations were high. Think back when “Toy Story 3” was announced. The initial reaction was that we didn't need it. The story was fine as it stood, and anything new would tarnish what the first movies worked so hard to accomplish. But then, “Toy Story 3” came out, and not only was it good, but it left the first two in the dust when it came to emotional roller-coasters and feeling connected to the characters. “Mother 3” is the video game equivalent of “Toy Story 3”.

There's a reason fans have begged Nintendo to release “Mother 3” in the west for almost 10 years now. Everything “Earthbound” did was improved by “Mother 3.” The characters feel more real, the threat feels more personal, the battles are more engaging. Add parables of loss, family, blind consumerism, greed, and mistreatment of the planet's resources for personal gain, and you've got a sequel that improves on its predecessors in every way. “Mother 3” not only knows how to tell a story, but how to make you feel something. One early scene in particular, Flint's discovery of his wife, Hinawa's, death, remains one of the most poignant scenes in gaming. It's book-ended by jokes, but still filled with raw emotion. It's also played out with almost no dialogue.

The Mother series is brilliant because it not only embraces weirdness, but uses that weirdness to elevate its story. You're fighting hippopotamuses-turned-rocket launchers and hammerhead sharks with kangaroo pouches, but when you find out the selfish antagonist from “Earthbound” is doing it because he's now immortal and is simply bored, it feels wrong. You feel guilty, because those animals didn't deserve it. They're victims, just like you are. There's a streak of Vonnegut in the Mother series. The games are about humanity and it's flaws. It's about the relationship we have with Mother Earth and the line between using her resources and abusing her. It blurs the lines between the hilarious and the grotesque. It's the joy of small personal victories meeting the sheer disappointment of what humanity can be at its worst. It was... odd. But you couldn't appreciate the heartache without laughing at the oddness first, and you couldn't find relief in the oddness without caring about the heartache.

The Mother series not only flipped the RPG genre on its head, but proved that the player can have a personal stake in the story. It showed that the player can feel pity for those small enemies they come across on the way to the bad guy that leads them. It showed that the people you meet have a stake in how you continue your journey. And it showed that humanity can be terrible, but there are always some who are willing to question if we have to be. And not just because that's what the story dictates.

So what does all this have to do with “Undertale”?

Part 2