To be honest, I was shooting blanks this week. There’s a lot going on in my life right now, so it’s difficult to focus on one thing at a time. Right now I’m studying for a Networking Certification (for IT) and my daughter just got into Montessori Preschool (awesome) that will cost an additional $250 a month than what we are paying now (not awesome). But that’s an investment I’m willing to make in my daughter’s future, so whatevs’.
But
yesterday, in a moment of tongue-in-cheek amusement, it dawned on me that this
one PC game I had fun playing back when I was in Middle School/High School,
seemed to carry with it a deeper purpose, one that personally resonated with
me. Truth be told, I am not much of a gamer anymore, unless there is a very
directed and interesting story running through the game. (I’ve always believed
that video games are a contemporary form of pulp fiction entertainment. Readily
available and easily discarded.) For instance, The Witcher 3 is a masterclass of interactive storytelling, with a
fascinating intertextual analysis of both Fantasy and Science-Fantasy genres existing
in the same world. (Portals, guys!). The
Stanley Parable also is an interactive discourse in determinism and the
illusion of free will presented in videogames in general. (The player feels in
control of their destiny, but in reality they are being tricked into running a
predetermined maze built on the foundation of mathematics, code, and scripted
sequences.) These two are among many examples of incredible storytelling in the
gaming medium, but that’s not what this entry is about. It’s about the
cartoonish and willful depictions of Vampire clans in pop-culture and roleplaying, specifically
how they are rendered in the gameplay of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodliness (a PC iteration of the world-renown tabletop RPG) and how these clans embody the fantasies
of young adult society.
The following is an individual treatment of each clan, all of
which I had an opportunity to play through the story of Bloodlines about 15 years ago (good god, I’m old…). The central
thesis of this entry was listed above and the below serve to establish it..
One of the easier clans to play as in Bloodlines is the
Brujah, because of their favoring strength and less-than-diplomatic resolutions
to puzzles and conflict. In gaming terminology, you could call this class a “tank,”
meant to absorb damage and draw conflict away from more surgical players
exercising specific, high power abilities with long “cool-downs” (aka, the
time required to elapse before an ability can be used again). The Brujah are described in the game as anarchists, those against the system, passionate about
causes that benefit the disenfranchised. I am keenly aware of the youthful
rebellion associate with puberty, and the Brujah epitomize radicalization, independence,
and strength. It’s the ideal class for any pasty kid with angst for days and a
mom and dad hell-bent of getting them to go to church on Sunday mornings. The
need to feel like you have a voice in a crowd, and be loud enough to shout them
all down, is such a desire as a young kid going to high school. This game capitalizes
on that fervor with profound alacrity.
A clan that I personally identified with was the Gangrel.
Gangrels are loaners, wild things that like to do what they want to do and don’t
care about the trappings of social commitments. They are content to run free in
the forest, transforming into animals and vaping THC oil. Gangrel are depicted
in Bloodlines as stoners meshed with furries out of costume. While they are
more likely to embrace bestial instincts, its more because they just want to be
left the hell alone. I mentioned that I personally identified with this clan,
primarily because I didn’t subscribe to any institutions growing up. I didn’t
play organized sports (and if I did, I never stuck with one), I didn’t
participate in social clubs, and I didn’t have friends at all really. I was
content in my own world, which for a lot of kids growing up, is enough. Adolescence
is the critical period for finding your identity, and for some that time hasn’t
arrived yet. That’s why there’s college.
The Malkavians is one of my least favorite clans in Bloodlines, despite having some of the
best dialogue options in the game. This clan in essence is grounded in utter
insanity, and the traits demonstrated in the game favor those with unique
resolutions to quests or puzzles in general. I don’t like this clan because
there’s certain people in High School that I despised that readily subscribe to
the modus operandi of the Malkavians, in that they didn’t ever shut the fuck
up. Giggly teens constantly talking and pretending that they (and their antics)
are god’s gift to the world are incorrigible and irritating as fuck. In the
game specifically, Malkavians demonstrate a certain prescience and ability to
have insight into potentially ambiguous situations. I find this unendingly
amusing, because anyone who is crazy believes that they are the only authority
on everything. This manifests in the professional world in the form of “one-upmanship,”
where you might be talking to a co-worker about how you found a really great
deal on chicken breasts at Sprouts, and this motherfucker comes in and says, “oh
yeah? This weekend I went to ONE THOUSAND STORES.” And you just want to punch
them in the throat, but can’t because medical insurance.
From Left to Right: Malkavian, Nosferatu, and possible Kuei-Jin (Asian Vampire) |
The Tremere, a clan of blood sorcerers and adept followers of
magiks, I have difficulty placing into my paradigm of “clans analogous to
middle school and high school experiences.” I will say that at my highschool
there was a lot of people involved in new age pagan movements, such as Wicca
and Asatru Paganism. (In matters of religion I am less vitriolic than I was in
college.) Suffice to say, the art of divination and extispicy garners it’s
coarse reputation by established religious norms, because magic (at least in
Judeo-Christian religious tradition) is seen as a means of hacking reality or
rigging the system. In essence, the practitioner is unhappy with the current
state of reality and endeavors to change it. So, maybe the Tremere represent a
sophisticated symbol of my desire to cheat on my math tests? Otherwise I think
it’s safe to say that the RPG developers of Masquerade
were like, “fuck! We need wizards,” and voila.
Last, but not least is the Nosferatu clan, who apparently live in the sewers because they are so ugly that just seeing them would expose the Vampire Illuminati. Those that feel completely isolated from society because of their looks or because of their circumstances, identify well with the Nosferatu. Their external appearance (sociological or physical) would compel these individuals to the heights of critical acclaim, like a scorned nerd in high school growing up to manage a tech empire and marry into a harem of trophy wives and extramarital partners. The Nosferatu are resourceful and adept at gathering intelligence. In other words they are indispensable lackeys. I didn’t know anyone like this in High School, truth be told. So maybe the Nosferatu is the AV Club?
So there you have it, my wild hair-brained theory.
All in jest of course.