In Search of Undersea Wildness in My Octopus Teacher, Abzu, and In Other Waters
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- Kat tackles the depiction of wild sea life in three pieces of media and asks - which one does it best?
Spoiler info: Mid-late game footage of Abzu is shown between 14:15 - 15:20 and the ending discussed, although frankly the story is so thin it hardly makes a difference. End-game plot spoilers for In Other Waters appear between 20:40 - 22:25 so skip this if you want to discover the story for yourself.
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Transcript: bit.ly/pixeladay_underseawildness
Special thanks to Pam of the channel Cannot Be Tamed for providing her voice: @Cannotbetamed1
Thanks also to Videvo, Videezy and Coverr for the ocean footage and pollution and water treatment footage, Al Jazeera and The Economist for the dead zone footage, NOAA Fisheries for the marine life footage, and WatchMojo.com for the scary sea creature compilation
All game footage capped by me
Music used in this episode:
My Octopus Teacher Opening Titles - Kevin Smutts & Matthew Dennis
A Strange Shape - Kevin Smutts
Underwater Tracking - Kevin Smutts
Seriola Lalandi - Austin Wintory
Chaos, The Mother - Austin Wintory
A Drifting Lens - Amos Roddy
Into the Bloom - Amos Roddy
The Last Artificer - Amos Roddy
My Octopus Teacher (0:00)
Abzu (08:42)
In Other Waters (15:37)
Conclusion (22:25) - Hry
If you like what I do please consider throwing me a bit of money on Patreon, check out the tiers and benefits here: www.patreon.com/pixeladay
The way animals are depicted in art is increasingly a source of fascination for me. Because no matter how one does it it will reveal deeply how the artist understands natural life, and humans are all-so-often tragically bad at understanding the things that we aren't.
Among youtube video essays you are absolutely ahead of the game with analyzing biology in art. No one else I watch could have criticized Abzu as incisively and poignantly as you did here.
Excellent essay, one of my favorites for sure. I hope to join you in writing about how we depict the things that we aren't in the future, as it is a strong passion of mine and I genuinely believe a fuller understanding of animals and their otherness is essential for a better humanity 💙 🌊
"this isn't an ocean... it's an aquarium"
Well f****g said! I think you really captured my feelings towards ABZU. I thought it was so beautiful, but also so sterile...
Great video as always!! I highly recommend Maggie Mae Fish video where she frames this documentary as a horror movie from the octopus perspective - The Horror of Humanity's Hubris | An Analysis of My Octopus Teacher.
I re-watched it after watching My Octopus Teacher and while I still find it very funny at points (Maggie is just hilarious and I love her), now having seen the movie I realise that quite a few of her points are misrepresentations in pretty bad faith. It's kind of a comedy video and it should be taken as such but from the comments a lot of people seem to have taken all her points at face value, and I think they really should not.
Ironically, my favourite part of Abzu were not the chill parts with fishies but exploring the underwater pyramid-factory thing which also had menacing droning apocalyptic synth music, not the toothless calm orchestra :P
In Other Waters was in some ways a throwback to classic hard sci-fi that was less about action and plot but more about a "dry" fantasy of being a scientist (an actual scientist, not the "macguffin dispenser" type), dreaming up new ecosystems or theories of physics etc. that actually simulated real-world complexities - not to be confused with Star Trek technobabble.
First off, I love this video essay! It's really thoughtful.
Watching your video has made me realise that in My Octopus Teacher the way he talks about the octopus - centering it around his own experiences and healing rather than considering the octopus' experiences - reminds me of the 'magical black person' and 'manic pixie dreamgirl' movie tropes.
The 'magical black person' movie trope is when a black character helps the lead white character to go through a personal journey of self-discovery and healing by observing the ways in which the black character has it much worse, but copes with it stoically and cheerfully. It's problematic as it treats the black character as a mere prop to aid the white character's personal journey. It's only concerned with the details of the black character's life so far as it can serve the white person, by being a point of contrast with their own life. The whole thing is centred around the white person's experience.
The 'manic pixie dreamgirl' movie trope is similar: a wild, carefree young woman helps a shy or grumpy man to open up and become more carefree. 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' is a perfect example of this. Once again, the details of the woman's life are only examined as far as they need to be to be helpful to the guy's personal development; her whole purpose in the movie is to be a useful prop for the main character to reflect on. Her own feelings on the matter aren't prioritised.
My Octopus Teacher has the same vibe: a guy has hit rock bottom, finds an octopus simply living out its life, and then obsesses about it and projects his own feelings onto it in order to aid his personal journey of healing. Like the other examples, the octopus is just a useful prop. I think the most telling for me was when its body is mutilated - its leg is literally torn off - he compares it to his stress at work! How did he manage to make that moment about himself??
That's not to say that I think the documentary is bad! It's fascinating, and still very enjoyable. But I think you can appreciate something and still engage with it critically.
I got a similar vibe from "My Octopus Teacher" too (although I have not seen more than what was shown in this video).
It's like stories about racism made by white people where it's something to have a character arc over instead of acknowledging the systemic problems which actual people suffer from.
Everything becomes a commodity, even acknowledging the suffering of others.
As Socko said it: "Why do you rich fucking white people insist on seeing every socio-political conflict through the myopic lens of your own self-actualization?" (that's from Bo Burnham's Inside btw).
Now I don't want to dismiss everything as "virtue signaling" as I believe that is most often used by assholes who want to portray the world like everyone is secretly as selfish as they are so it's fine for them not to care too. But it's good to at least consider whether your actions would actually be beneficial for the other beings.
I still think non-human animals are by far the worst victims of this commodification though.
From the absolute apathy in food-and clothing industries to the pet breeding where they primarily serve as animate plushies. Most bizarre ones are probably the people how much they feel in line with nature and how much respect they have for the animal they just murdered during their hunt.
I think a problem with the narrative PaD here is that she still embraces the dichotomy of "man" on one side and "nature" (including *cough* black person and woman as you note) on the other. As many have observed, the solution isn't to "leave nature alone", it's to understand that we are part of nature, that we are not separate from it.
Another observation is that we've basically messed up nature to such an extent that recovery without us is all but impossible. People are starting to put in work to recover wildlands. Rewilding is not simply sitting there and letting nature take its course, it's actively monitoring and intelligently intervening, such as with the re-introduction of Grey Wolves in Yosemite.
@@therealsunnyk The herbivores in Yosemite were probably very happy that predators were reintroduced again.
It's playing god without any consideration for the actual well-being of these animals.
@@PauLtus_B Your argument is like if someone doesn't know basic maths and says accountants are playing god. We are very much playing human. Indigenous tribes tens of thousands of years ago have been able to do things like this without even writing it down. This sort of thing is well within humanity's grasp. There is no god, we're accepting our role as part of nature.
This video gave me a whole new perspective on nature and conservation, thank you for your thoughts 🤗
You're welcome! :)
My octopus teacher always rubbed me the wrong way.
Once again I spawn a Kat video
It's very interesting that you mention the (excellent) artbook of In Other Waters - because in that, it also reveals that Ellery Vas was already dead by the time anyone else rediscovered the planet (publically, at least). Not because of any accident, or human interference - but because living on the planet just reduces a human lifespan substantionally, and it's not even known why. Though it is implied that it wasn't this way before the Bloom was unleashed, and therefore might indicate that the planet not only came up with a solution to the toxic bloom in its waters, but to the risk of human invasion itself. And that unfortunately included Vas too, even if she was one of the ones who knew who to treat it with respect. But this planet was never meant for humans, even the good ones. And that little plot reveal makes that very clear.
This was a really lovely, serious but interesting video :)
Beautiful! Thanks a lot
Amazing video :D
Your calming voice well-complements the calming ocean vibe of this video
I'm so glad Writing on Games recommended your channel. Watching you take these pieces of media that seem initially pleasant and innocuous, and genuinely critically analyze them has revealed how uncritically I tend to go about experiencing a lot of works of art. This video has opened my eyes, and I really appreciate your perspective.
Appreciate the comment! Hope you stick around on the channel :)
its lovely watching this while cuddling my own octopus plush, ill have to check out In Other Waters now ig :3
Please do!
Deep Blue is a good ocean game/documentary.
Great stuff as always!!!
I love your work! Your videos always make me think about things in a way that I hadn't before, like the human tendency to center ourselves you point out in this one.
I just started playing In Other Waters a few weeks ago. It's the first time I've already been playing a game before it was mentioned in one of your videos. 😆 I'm looking forward to finishing it, especially now.
Thanks for watching and your support.
Absolutely beautiful. First video and I'm 300% hooked, I love your presentation
Thanks so much for your lovely comment. Hope you stick around on the channel!
I haven't played In Other Waters yet, but I did play the developer's next game Citizen Sleeper, and they really seem similarly thoughtful. I'll never stop telling people to play Citizen Sleeper.
Citizen Sleeper is fantastic. I'm convinced that it's set in the same universe as In Other Waters, though there isn't anything in the text of either game that makes it explicit.
Great video!!
I loved My Octopus Teacher! And this video. As someone with Thalassophobia I'm always taken aback at how fascinated I am with underwater worlds in games.
Yay! Glad you liked the video
nice video , very well narrated :)
Lately, there's a game called South Scrimshaw that I think you would love it.
I think Rain World fits the topic of this essay, too.
I actually backed In Other Waters on Kickstarter but never got around to actually playing it. This has got me really excited to finally start it 💪
💪💪💪
I really enjoyed your video. Your analysis of My Octopus Teacher reminded me of the documentary film Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog which is about Timonthy Treadwell's fatal desire to belong within a community of bears. This is Herzog: "What haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature". You may enjoy the film. Ps. Your Paradise Killer video is my personal favorite; I'd love to see more political takes on games and more Ursula K. Le Guin!
How funny - I heard about, and watched, that movie when I was researching this video. It was fucked up and I loved it so much
Need to get back into In Other Waters. Wasn't in the head space to enjoy the game the first time. Appreciated how good it was, just couldn't get into it.
Do it!
On another note: I thought in one point in the video you would show the Octopus riding the shark in a similar way you can ride a shark in Abzu :p
Hands down best bit in the film! XD
Yeah, I can see the issue with the My Octopus Teacher position. Centering how we are all the same as you can have a nasty habit of causing us to believe that all there is to others is what we can and already comprehend rather than each of us being truly alien creatures with experiences we have not have, may never have, and may never truly know. This has the knock on effect of us tending to disbelieve that which we do not/cannot relate to, and media like this can help reinforce that. Like, part of the beauty of intelligent life like this that it's not like us, that intelligence can spawn taking a totally different path than we did, and we should try to understand it on those terms, rather than trying to get it to fit into our own models we use on ourselves because those are convenient.
Other examples of when this goes bad are things like the Monomyth, and how it often is used to flatten the cultures of other, non-European cultures stories to just be conveniently like the West's and how that then gets used to dismiss the need for further study, "if it's all the same then why bother?" often being the reasoning.
The life experience is not a thing that can be flattened and easily digested, it's why so many of us experience it so differently.
Thanks for your lovely comment and for watching! I agree there's definitely a line to be drawn between feeling a connection with other forms of life and erasing their difference and alien-ness to us (which is part of what makes them wonderful and amazing!)
That applies to the dude and the octopus both.
Thanks for your insights - I think you identified why Abzu didn’t entirely click for me, despite me wanting to like it…
Great essay.
(I'm reminded of Adam Millard's review of Terra Nil.)
I'm always worried that my game designs aren't saying things that I don't mean them to say.
Ooh, I haven't seen that one from Adam. On to the Watch Later list it goes! But on game designs saying things you don't mean them to say, I thought Static Canvas's critique of Terra Nil was really interesting.
@@PixelaDay Terra Nil is a very interesting perspective in this context - on one hand, it's very much action-focused at first, but then at the very end, you pack away all the machines you used to fix the world and leave the place behind forever.
It's basically the two extremes of the spectrum in one game - extreme action to reverse the (very large amount of) damage done to the planet, followed by the extreme inaction of leaving the entire planet in a rocket to go elsewhere. It's deffo one of my fave games this year, even if it's deffo not got as much friction as it could have done as a game and thematically.
Wonderful video as always! I always appreciate the standards you hold media to - this sort of criticism encourages everyone to engage and create with a greater sense of responsibility.
I agree with the points you're making, but I think media that focuses on spectacle or anthropomorphism still has a place when it comes to animal welfare outreach. Consider how practically every open-world game that exists has some kind of hunting mechanic, where exploitation of animals in the world is assumed and mechanically encouraged. Those games exist in the same media space as Abzu, where animals are treated non-adversarially, or as something to be marvelled at. Considering the lack of precedent, it's still doing amazing work to encourage non-exploitative relationships with wild animals (especially sea animals, which are so often ignored when it comes to animal ethics issues!)
Not that long ago, I took my young son to a farm, and we were looking at some chickens. Another dad nearby pointed them out to his kid - "look, chickens! Yummy chickens!" It made me so angry - this person's entire relationship with these animals, and the values that they're passing on to their kid, are based entirely around consumption. This is the audience that still needs to be reached. If spectacle or anthropomorphism is a first step to get people to reconsider the nature of their relationship with animals, that's not ideal, as you've pointed out. But it is a very helpful start.
Regardless, thanks for making such thoughtful content! I always look forward to your uploads :)
Glad you're enjoying the channel
"In other waters" is such a wonderful and unique game, no wonder they also created Citizen Sleeper. Good video.
Extremely pumped for Citizen Sleeper 2
I stopped that documentary only after a few minutes, it looked to me like "white man discovers something that has always been there but pretends he invented it". I'm sick of all things colonialist, being born in a country with a long history of colony and interventionist conflicts. Yeah, we shot some french kings dead but still. Anyway, another amazing video essay from my favorite channel. Thank you, Kat.
Thanks as always for your amazing support
Beautiful video!
Animal rights are an issue I spend a lot of time on and I agree with you here.
The well-being of non-human animals should not be considered based on their similarities to humans but rather because they have value just as they are.
Humans have an odd habit of both glorifying nature and playing god with it. One of the oddest ones to me is when predators are reintroduced in an area where they previously went extinct, without any consideration for the effect it has on beings already living there, who would probably prefer not to have other animals hunting them.
Glad you enjoyed the video!
Documentarian POV bias has existed since Nanook of the North...
Only just had chance to watch this but your Short talking about humans meddling in nature made me all the more eager to sit down with it! This was (another) great video and it's a subject that's close to my heart, particularly after the last few years with lockdown and being out in nature a lot more.
For years now we've had a wild field next to our house, full of grasses and wildflowers that simply don't exist in crop fields, livestock feed fields, 'green' space parks and other tended spaces. The reason for this is that the field had 'no purpose', or at least, the planning applications for a housing estate had never been approved (dating as far back as the 70s). It was unmanaged and left to grow and it attracted so much more wildlife than other fields around our village. My girlfriend even recorded a barn owl hunting in there. Unfortunately, last year the planning application went through and it's all gone now. Worse: they're commissioning some art nature panels to 'celebrate' the field that was once there, with pictures of trees, a fox and birds. It makes me angry every time I think about it.
On the other side of our village is some other fields that have always grown crops. Last year we noticed that they'd just been left without crops or maintenance so there was all sorts growing in there, from thistles and red clover to ragwort and various grasses. It was great to see but... it was not being managed for a reason, and that reason was: another housing development. We swung by the field the other day and the ragwort was covered in cinnebar moth caterpillars munching away so it was disappointing to see such a high concentration of them in one placing knowing that place would soon be gone, again.
I've also noticed that most environmental initiatives like tree planting are people-centred. Orchards for food, for the cost of living crisis, woodlands for health and wellbeing, for educating children (like adults don't need it!) and commemorating the queen.
My girlfriend and I are pretty lazy when it comes to gardening but our 'overgrown' hedge explodes with flowers that wouldn't exist if we'd kept it 'tidy', and it attracts more pollinators, birds and other insects than anything else in our garden. The birds and certain bumblebees, moths and butterflies love the leaf pile we never cleared up. The fencing we never varnished/treated is loved by the wasps building their nests. Some uncut plants have ended up covered in caterpillars and larvae. Solitary bees laying eggs in brickwork holes that were never filled. A few years ago a nature charity I follow did a thread on the continuing decline of wildlife in the UK and it just signed off with an exasperated 'if you want to help wildlife, stop fussing over your garden'. Stop meddling. You could feel the anger coming through in that message and it really stayed with me.
God, my messages are always so bloody long.
I'm really glad you ended with In Other Waters because that left such a good impression with me thanks to the sensitive handling of its ecological theme. I've got a feeling Terra Nil will be relevant to this conversation but I need to play more than the demo! I bought the game, just not had a chance to play it yet. I'm looking forward to reading the critique you shared recently about it!
Also: 'You save them by going into a magic portal and putting a magic bean into a magic bubble' VIDEOGAMES :D (I enjoyed Abzu too!)
VIDEOGAMES! This comment is really appreciated, thanks for taking the time to leave it. How lucky am I to have commenters this fantastic!
No Blahaj???
Great essay though!!
Five minutes ago I didn't know what a Blahaj was, now I'm reading an article titled "How the IKEA Shark Became a Trans Icon". What has happened
@@PixelaDay Perfect ^w^
Great video! Haven't seen My Octopus Teacher or played In Other Waters, but I appreciate your perspective that many stories romanticize our relationship with nature and forget that we often do more damage than good, even with our "good intentions."
I'm interested in how you came about this video. Was the idea brought about by watching My Octopus Teacher and then drawing upon examples in gaming to exemplify your point or something else?
Also, I loved Abzu, but for very different reasons. I had never played Abzu with that "false aquarium" design front and centre. I ended up writing a paper on Abzu for my master's degree, because I saw at the end of my first playthrough in the credits that Abzu was based on the first tablets of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth.
My paper argued that Abzu was a non-violent reinterpretation of the Enuma Elish, a story about re-creation (the Babylonian creation myth is a violent story).
Thanks for sharing another perspective on the game! It's now even more resonant to me.
Thanks for your comment! A couple of things happened at once actually, I recently played In Other Waters and also came across this article (venomsdietwice.com/2020/11/19/perfect-seas-abzu/) which helped me start thinking about why Abzu left me a bit cold. Then after I got the idea for the vid I watched My Octopus Teacher thinking I could work it in, and found that I could.
I don't know this octopus guy. I don't know his intentions. Nor do I know anything about the production chain of his documentary and whether any significant presence was along it to amplify or moderate it's 'message.' Still, I left the segment feeling sour.
Like, each example of his actions and opinions picked over and analysed herein mirrors some aspect of my relationship with nature - cheifly how I package/characterise them for an audience that really wants their conversation bawdlerised _to the max_ (read - nearly everyone). I guess that's the price I pay for having very few friends outside of work or the pub?
Nevertheless I leave feeling slightly attacked, and more sympathetic towards the belligerent right than I'd like.
B
I think this video is fantastic. My only note is the bit about Abzu seems a bit overall negative. This game is wonderful and fantastic. I don't think it should be read into that much. It would be similar to comparing digging for oil in the game Journey. Because it relates to us being alone after our world is almost destroyed from a war over this precious resource under the desert sands. It's just a bit much it seems. Otherwise I think it's a great observation and conversation about all of these pieces of media. Great work!
I like Abzu a lot but I find it a good thing to think about the potential messages of these very innocent seeming games.
That's not to say the creators had any bad intent at all, or dismiss the experience it can give but it's quite impossible not to somehow make comments on the subjects when you include them in a piece of media.
I agree it's always good to have a conversation about the media you have presented in the game. Just seems a bit of a stretch to force a conversation. I just don't think they were attempting to be political or come across as making aquatic exploration as something mankind needs to keep as being mindful due to pollution and other issues. That's all lol. The first movie and video is for sure a strong criticism due to that being the nature of how they are creating and presenting it.
@@LastChanceWasTaken I already mentioned I really don't think the creators had "deceptive intent".
It's not like the video above has jabs at the creators, or even much at the game itself, it's putting it under a specific critical lens and within that context the outcome isn't good.
Glad you liked the video! To be clear I enjoyed Abzu and have recommended it to other people! I agree that it presents itself as just a nice chill game that "shouldn't be read into much", but I think that very intent can be criticised. It doesn't do much - that's the intention and the drawback. I think that when you erase the complexity (uncertainty, weirdness, terror, ambiguity, etc.) from a story or a setting, you also erase your ability to do or say truly interesting things. Which is why I value Subnautica and In Other Waters as ocean games and experiences more than I do Abzu.
One thing Iʼve noticed is that, ironically, the conservationist perspective also seems to depend on an anthropocentric assumption: that we, as humans, are fundamentally distinct from nature. We should stay away from it, according to this view, as if we were not part of nature as well. Is not, say, human curiosity also a property of our ecosystems? Why are human behaviours seen through a radically different lens than those of other animals? Again ironically, we also seem to find a human-centric narrative here, one where we are depicted not as agents, but as observers, observers of an ideally balanced world, if only we were to not be here, that we should only appreciate from a distance, thus disconnected from it. There is nature and there are humans. This narrative gives us a more passive role, but it still gives us a separate treatment. I also wonder to what extent even the very concept of ecosystemic balance is just a mirage, maybe a product of our human lifespans obscuring the constant flux of life at larger time scales, or maybe a product of our preference for an environment that does not change and is therefore more predictable and easier to thrive in.
Donʼt get me wrong, I agree with most of what you say in the video. I also try to interfere with nature as little as I can, and human civilisation has obviously reached a point where our impact goes way beyond that of any other animals or even most terrestrial creatures. But I think, in the end, the conservationist perspective does not get completely rid of our human bias.
I think it's fair to say the --only-- _real?_ mirage is the potential delusion that we can really forsee (and control) the complete impact of our actions. Ironic too that our lack of awareness and restraint this far should make all the more precarious any shortcomings of our hopefully(!?) improved awareness and actions going forward. Doubly ironic considering the nature of mirages and their being artifacts of thermal differential.