Pentiment - The Evils of Narrative Control
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- čas přidán 10. 08. 2024
- Pentiment is a stylistically beautiful and historically faithful narrative adventure game with a mystery much deeper than you think. In this video essay, I examine how narrative control is central to Pentiment's experience, and we take a look at every element of this game to show just how evil this control can be.
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00:00 - Intro
05:33 - The Layers of Narrative Control
06:52 - Layer 0: Contextual Layer
10:39 - Layer 1: Meta Layer
12:25 - Layer 2: Story Layer
21:27 - Layer 3: Under-the-Surface Layer
26:32 - Final Thoughts
28:03 - Outro
Music Credits:
City of Reason - Pentiment Soundtrack (Alkemie Early Music Ensemble)
Piero's Pride - Pentiment Soundtrack (Alkemie Early Music Ensemble)
City of Melancholy - Pentiment Soundtrack (Alkemie Early Music Ensemble)
Vis Major - Pentiment Soundtrack (Alkemie Early Music Ensemble)
The Thread Puller - Pentiment Soundtrack (Alkemie Early Music Ensemble)
The Finale - Jeff Ruso (What Remains of Edith Finch soundtrack)
Edith's Theme - Jeff Ruso (What Remains of Edith Finch soundtrack)
Home Sweet Home - OSRSBeatz
Sound Effects From:
freesound.org/
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About Pentiment: Pentiment is an adventure video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios.
Step into a living illustrated world in a time when Europe is at a crossroads of great religious and political change. Walk in the footsteps of Andreas Maler, a master artist who finds himself in the middle of murders, scandals, and intrigue in the Bavarian Alps.
#Pentiment #Review #VideoEssay - Hry
I'll come back after finishing the game. I confess... I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm intrigued by the game's premise now
It's worth it!
I would not recommend watching this before before playing it.
I would recommend watching it after.
Oh my god, what an essay. Thank you for this.
Damn layer 3 was superbly done and explained well
This is a great assessment of a great game.
Thank you!
Good breakdown
Such a good video i love this game so much
Very good video!
I quite enjoyed this
Incredibly poniant essay. Well don't. I just started playthrough 2 and I needed some video essay content on this stellar title.
Thanks a lot!
I disagree that the game is overall about narrative control but I do agree with the parallels with Mags in the 3rd act when we deciding on what to put on the mural.
Act 1 throws out the idea of narrative control cause the person who is executed is left up to the Archdeacon NPC. As the player your only control is whom the archdeacon considers to be a potential guilty suspect and that is incumbent upon how much evidence you can gather.
Didn't fail in act 2 so I don't know what happens if you fail against the mob there.
Given that the story doesn't not tell you who actually commited the individual murders you have to live with the uncertainty of your choice in who is to be executed or who is executed in their stead if you fail to prove your suspect did so.
There is a mistake in your video (Your narrative control lol). The thread puller's notes were to encourage ppl to kill the victims, not as blackmail. They reminded the suspects of how wronged they were by the victims in order to stir up hatred.
Now on the 3rd Act I do agree with the parallels about narrative control, however you miss the point of the ending when the church itself breaks down and the art piece Mags was working on gets lost as well. History does not get to see what Mags made. If we were to take the epilogue pan out of the ending as cannon, and not a meta 4th wallbreak like being able to zoom out of the game at times (to see the book), then that shows us the actual player exercising narrative control to write the story of what happened.
In regards to the townspeople in Act 3, like many ppl they have their own perspectives of the revolt (especially with Andreas) and they are content in knowing what they know, without exploring to find out the truth of the matter. It not them expressing narrative control by actively choosing one truth out of a complex bags of facts, it's that the bag itself barely contains anything in the first place cause the ppl didn't want to investigate further.
The game to me is to have hope and have faith in providence as the evil thread puller was exposed in the end despite their efforts. I just wish Mags took the Mars head when she ran out of the room.
If you want a game about narrative control, play Headliner.
This game sucks and deserves no ones significant efforts.
Rage bait used to be believable