"God is real, and it wants us dead: The religious terror of BioWare's biggest games"

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**Ouze**

I found this to be an interesting opinion piece on two of my favorite games series: Mass Effect & Dragon Age.

source: Polygon

God is real, and it wants us dead: The religious terror of BioWare's biggest games
Profile Opinion by Tauriq Moosa on Dec 12, 2014 at 12:30p @tauriqmoosa

Games are often better at conveying horror than most other mediums, due to our direct and real-time responses.

This year, we've experienced the constant dread of Alien: Isolation and the grotesque physicality of The Evil Within. Overlooked, however, is the cosmic horror in BioWare games.

"We impose order on the chaos of organic life. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." These are the words of Sovereign, the first Reaper you encounter in Mass Effect. At this point, you discover that all life has been essentially created and guided by these godlike creatures. Now the Reapers are coming to end what they created.

The entire Mass Effect trilogy is preparing for war against beings who are more powerful than anything in existence because they, essentially, created existence.

Here, all of life is told their creator wishes it to end. This isn't nihilism written in the stars, it's death row on a cosmic scale as everything marches towards the gallows. To fight seems futile; as Harbinger puts it in Mass Effect 2, creation seems to be "dust struggling against cosmic winds." The entirety of existence is little more than the ant farm for uncaring gods.

BioWare's love of cosmic animosity toward creation found a new twist in Dragon Age as well.

According to the dominant religion in the games, the Maker is the all-powerful deity who has, many times, turned away from his creations. However, mages committed the most heinous sin of entering the Maker's holy space, The Golden City, to try and usurp the Maker's throne. Due to their presence and "sin of pride", they fundamentally tainted the City.

What was once a space for the Maker and an afterlife for the Maker's worshippers became one of corruption, due to mortal pride and greed. Heaven, then, became Hell.

The Maker cursed the mages to become Darkspawn, the source of evil that hangs over much of the series, upon their return to the world. The Maker once again turned from his creations. He answers no prayers and grants no wishes; he is a god who is indifferent to his creations. He punishes all for the sins of the few.

This idea of an all-consuming God stretches across both of BioWare's most popular franchises. The Reapers destroy by design, whereas the Maker does so because of its creations' greed. The Maker is Victor Frankenstein, whereas the Reapers are children with an ant farm and magnifying glass. Both have little regard for what they've created after they decide to destroy it.

THE MAN IN THE SKY IS A GUN POINTED AT OUR HEAD
There is no comfort to be found in BioWare's idea of a deity or deities. These games are pulling away from most religions' teachings of a loving, or at least tolerant, god.

This realty also makes the idea of atheism laughable. Atheism is the belief that such a god does not exist. As an atheist, you can't help but confront an indifferent universe. If there is no god answering prayers or granting wishes, we're free to create a world in which we'd like to live.

While the religious find comfort in the arms of a loving god, atheists may find power and morality in the idea that if this is all there is, a worthy goal is to make it livable. Both ways of thinking aim for some sort of comfort.

But BioWare games offer a terrifying vision of a god-filled universe. Indeed, they point to the sky and say that not only does god exist, he or she is coming to get you. You will not be saved by any outside intervention. At best, the gods of these worlds are uncaring. At worst they are our ultimate destruction. In these stories the Maker only intervenes to send literal monsters our way.

Dragon Age at least gives some hope. It was human action which led to the Maker's antagonism; but it is also human action that can win back his favor. From Dragon Age: The World of Thedas:

"The [Prophet] Andraste taught that evil exists because of humankind's pride. For this reason, [the world] brought the darkspawn upon itself. When the Maker returns, he will destroy all evil."
Though this victim-blaming language also touches on many Creation myths (humans anger a god or gods, deities overreact with banishment, floods, plagues, etc.), it does secure hope into mortal hands. The trope of "Devil But No God" is fastened into stories to allow mortals, like us, to overcome seemingly impossible odds.

Regardless of how difficult the struggle, the point is that some kind of salvation is achievable by mere mortals.

Yet, I can't help at wonder at the temporal futility of it: How long will it last? Why keep fighting? This is a question rightfully posed to the Commander Shepards and Inquisitors of BioWare's games. The best we can hope to do in these worlds is to create a small pocket of peace before the next wave of titanic, otherwordly forces decide they want our heads.

BioWare has created terrifying universes where creators wish ill of their creation; there are few things I find more terrifying. Fear arises from the unknown — as per Alien: Isolation — but here what's terrifying is based on exactly what is known: God is coming to kill us.

ALL OF LIFE IS TOLD ITS CREATOR WISHES IT TO END

The futility of it, the apparent impossibility of response, would make me numb. I could never understand why Shepard bothered, why she fought so hard and so long to take on what, in retrospect, seems ridiculously overwhelming. I can't understand the point of living in Dragon Age's world where my own Creator wishes me ill.

Not knowing if there is a higher power is preferable to knowing for sure one exists, and that this all-powerful being wants to set fire to everything they created.

BioWare should be recognized for creating some of the most terrifying worlds in gaming. Worlds where the odds, not to mention the deities, are stacked against us.

**Melissia**

But then you kick god's arse and save the fething day.

Edit: On reading through it a second time, I rather like this.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Meh. Those gods are nice compared to Sithrak. Join the Doomsayers of The Blind Gibberer today, and Sithrak will still torture your for all eternity!

**Manchu**

I cannot think of a single video game that takes religion seriously. In BioWare's RPGs, religion is just another prop. In ME, religion is mostly an aspect of non-human ethnicity. In DA, the Maker and Andraste are powerful NPCs from long ago. The moral universe of these games is largely black and white.

Or red and blue, to use BioWare's marketing colors.

The consumerist apocalypse comes down to final battle between Coke and Pepsi.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
I cannot think of a single video game that takes religion seriously.

Diablo! Very serious.
As a matter of fact, religion is too silly to be taken seriously in most works of fiction, even those by religious authors.
Is religion taken seriously in, say, The Lord of the Ring? Or in Marvel comics (Thor says hi, so does Spawn)? Or in any of the thousands of science fiction novel that explore the concept of god(s)?

**Desubot**

Manchu wrote:
I cannot think of a single video game that takes religion seriously. In BioWare's RPGs, religion is just another prop. In ME, religion is mostly an aspect of non-human ethnicity. In DA, the Maker and Andraste are powerful NPCs from long ago. The moral universe of these games is largely black and white.

Or red and blue, to use BioWare's marketing colors.

The consumerist apocalypse comes down to final battle between Coke and Pepsi.

I prefer mountain dew

**Melissia**

How do you mean "take religion seriously", Manchu?

**mattyrm**

Melissia wrote:
How do you mean "take religion seriously", Manchu?

I am desperate to reply to this post in a comical sarcastic manner but have a "religious terror of Mod".

**Compel**

DA:I seems to be trying to take religion seriously at least. I'm only a little of the way through it but a lot of the major conversations seem to be based around your character and their beliefs on whether they were handpicked and chosen by Andraste (basically, Dragon Age Jesis), or it was just random chance.

**Ketara**

mattyrm wrote:
Melissia wrote:
How do you mean "take religion seriously", Manchu?

I am desperate to reply to this post in a comical sarcastic manner but have a "religious terror of Mod".

We'll see how long that lasts....

**Compel**

In all honesty, I don't think the Reapers are meant to invoke a specifically religious fear or terror. Well, perhaps as a by-product of their influence.

I imagine the Reapers are more just inspired by the Lovecraftian Old Ones, which did draw on the religious terror type concepts.

**Manchu**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
religion is too silly to be taken seriously in most works of fiction, even those by religious authors

The trouble is, thing people often point at when they are talking about religion is not religion. So for example in the world of English-language popular fiction, Tolkien is full of religion but it is never explicit. C.S. Lewis, by contrast, thinks religion is baseball bat for beating his readers.

**Compel**

Tolkien did have a few heated discussions in the pub with Lewis about that subject as well.

Personally, I've always liked pseudo-religious stories. So, for example, though many people decried the ending to the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, I thought it was perfect.

I also found Sisko's journey as the emissary in Deep Space 9 to be fascinating too.

I liked that aspect of The Adjustment Bureau too.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
So for example in the world of English-language popular fiction, Tolkien is full of religion but it is never explicit.

Even if Eru Ilúvatar is not called directly a god (I do not know), well, it is still not really all that hidden…

**Manchu**

Melissia wrote:
How do you mean "take religion seriously", Manchu?

As in, how does one take religion seriously? The first step, I think, it to realize that faith is not a kind of opinion or fact claim. You get a hint of this in ME1 in a conversation with Ashley but it amounts to nothing. Sera in DAI has some similarly interesting but ultimately throwaway lines. And those are the most sophisticated examples I have seen. Usually, video games treat religion as set dressing. The symbols of religion are used to evoke sentiments but religion itself is never an issue. That's as true of Dragon Age as Castlevania. The totally uncritical way BioWare invokes the word "Inquisition," for example, is pretty much par for the course. On a deeper level, a religious video gamer has to wonder why anyone in Thedas bothers to worship a deity that they acknowledge doesn't care. I can only imagine it's because non-religious people (who often lampoon real religion by substituting it with their caricatures) are often responsible for these concepts. Extra Credits did an episode on this where they very correctly noted that no game designer ever seems to have asked a scholar of religion about religion. So since the portrayals of religion are completely a matter of (often politicized) uninformed opinion, I suppose it should be no surprise that what is labeled religion in video games almost always is actually just opinions about religion.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Manchu wrote:
So for example in the world of English-language popular fiction, Tolkien is full of religion but it is never explicit.
Even if Eru Ilúvatar is not called directly a god (I do not know), well, it is still not really all that hidden…

Eru is clearly the Creator according to Elven memory and tradition. But what is completely unclear, what Tolkien purposefully obscures to lend a sense of historicity, is any connection between Eru and Christianity.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
The first step, I think, it to realize that faith is not a kind of opinion or fact claim.

Faith is not a fact claim? Lots of religious people seem to disagree.

Manchu wrote:
On a deeper level, a religious video gamer has to wonder why anyone in Thedas bothers to worship a deity that they acknowledge doesn't care.

I am not sure how much exactly they do not care, but real gods like, say, the Greek pantheon, have been worshiped without really caring much beside their next sacrifice…

Manchu wrote:
But what is completely unclear, what Tolkien purposefully obscures to lend a sense of historicity, is any connection between Eru and Christianity.

Yes, because Christianity has a different and silly creation myth that would not work at all with the one from Tolkien. That is why I meant by saying religion is not taken seriously. The actual mythology of real religions are never played completely straight, because the result would stretch credibility beyond what even a fan of fantasy or science fiction is ready to accept.

**Manchu**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Lots of religious people seem to disagree.

Let's be clear: being religious does not mean one understands religion or has anything worthwhile to say about it.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
real gods like, say, the Greek pantheon, have been worshiped without really caring much beside their next sacrifice…

Real gods? That very phrase belies a huge amount of ahistorical assumptions. In reality, the ancient Greek conception of religion has almost nothing in common with the modern monotheistic conception, which is what BioWare is concerned about.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Yes, because Christianity has a different and silly creation myth that would not work at all with the one from Tolkien.

All of Tolkien's work is fundamentally Christian inasmuch as it assumes Christianity teaches the truth about reality. What you call a "silly creation myth" is fully present in the Ainulindalë. It is in fact an expanded re-telling of the opening verses of Genesis via a musical metaphor.

**mattyrm**

I was raised C of E so I haven't got an axe to grind despite claims to the contrary, but at the end of the day its a fething stretch to suggest that religion isn't silly to any even remotely impartial observer.

Its why kids poke holes in religion all the time. They ask really logical obvious questions like "If God can do anything why do little babies get cancer?" and they are only assuaged by smart adults who come up with increasingly complex arguments to make their conditioning make sense.

It definitely is pretty silly if you have the moral courage to be honest enough to admit it. Most of my deeply religious friends freely admit it, its just the hardcore believers that come on/moderate on dakka that are not willing to concede any ground.

And there is nothing really wrong with being silly either by the way, we are just evolved apes, we do silly things all the time. Its silly to instantly have an urge to glace at a woman's bottom when she bends over to tie her shoes, but I do it for a split second before my intellect kicks in and I go "stop being a chimp"

I cant talk much about it for fear of the overzealous ban-hammer, but lets not sit here trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and claim that religion is totally logical and sensible because very few things are.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
Let's be clear: being religious does not mean one understands religion or has anything worthwhile to say about it.

Okay. For my information, what do show one understands religion? Or, more precisely, when two people argue that they understand religion while the other does not, how do one determine who does? By which measure?

Manchu wrote:
the modern monotheistic conception

I am sorry, what do you mean by this expression? Some definition of religion that only include monotheism, therefore including the 3th biggest religion in number of believers?

Manchu wrote:
which is what BioWare is concerned about.

Well, given the huge influence of mythology in general on fantastic settings in general, I would not be so sure they are concerned only with monotheistic “modern” religions.

Manchu wrote:
All of Tolkien's work is fundamentally Christian inasmuch as it assumes Christianity teaches the truth about reality.

Without Christ, the flood, the tree of the knowledge of god and evil, long hairs that gives people superpowers, the seven commandments, …
Or maybe I just missed those.

**Ahtman**

Is this sort of like people wanting to play (read: player insert) an Atheist cleric in D&D even though religion/dieties are shown in that game to have a more tangible impact on the world?

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Honestly, who would call the story of a guy who is super-strong as long as he have long hair, who loose all his strength when they are cut, whose secret is stolen from him by his treacherous wife, who then get captured, shaven and chained to a temple by his enemies; enemies who are ultimately so stupid that they forget his hair grow back and do not shave him again, and therefore die when he breaks up the temple not silly? It almost makes Marvel and DC look sensible. Almost!

**Swastakowey**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Honestly, who would call the story of a guy who is super-strong as long as he have long hair, who loose all his strength when they are cut, whose secret is stolen from him by his treacherous wife, who then get captured, shaven and chained to a temple by his enemies; enemies who are ultimately so stupid that they forget his hair grow back and do not shave him again, and therefore die when he breaks up the temple not silly? It almost makes Marvel and DC look sensible. Almost!

His hair doesn't grow back. When he gets put up in their temple for humiliation he is granted his strength back on last time and he decides to destroy the pillars he is chained to bringing down the temple. The hair wasnt his source of powers, god was, but he was not to cut his hair or god would take away his powers. His powers werent like that of superman, he was just known as the strongest man in the area.

From memory anyway.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Ahtman wrote:
Is this sort of like people wanting to play (read: player insert) an Atheist cleric in D&D even though religion/dieties are shown in that game to have a more tangible impact on the world?

D&D is a perfect example of NOT using the “modern monotheistic conception” of religion, and going with one much more similar to what was in ancient Greece. This is what most games do, because it is so much more interesting. You have conflicting deities that brings more richness to the setting than any omnipotent loyal good thing could ever. Because omnipotent lonely god can solve every problem ever by herself, which does not make for cool stories.

**Ahtman**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Honestly, who would...not silly?

People who understand metaphor and analogy? People who understand history and how the stories from it make up the fabric of modernity?

**Manchu**

It's not that religion itself is silly; rather, it's that we often insist on talking about it in silly ways. Many people who claim to be religious as well as those who think they are railing against it tend to boil down religion to overly literal and/or fantastical nonsense. In essence, fools talk foolishly. The Pope himself has had to recently remind the world that God is not a wizard, something anti-religious zealots need to keep in mind as much as religious zealots. This level is usually as far as it gets in many discussions. I can already see that developing ITT. And it's just not worth the time and effort.

I'm grateful that BioWare at least transcends that level. But it doesn't get very far. What religion actually means is never discussed in ME or DA. Rather, the topic is whether being religious is preferable to not being religious. And that's an inherently hollow question so long as religion itself remains unexamined.

Ahtman wrote:
People who understand metaphor and analogy? People who understand history and how the stories from it make up the fabric of modernity?

Those are apparently some of the absolutely rarest insights in contemporary culture. A basic awareness of modernity, I find, is almost always completely lacking.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Swastakowey wrote:
he is granted his strength back on last time and he decides to destroy the pillars he is chained to bringing down the temple.
[…]
His powers werent like that of superman, he was just known as the strongest man in the area.

So, that sheds some very bad light on the work of the architect of the temple if some man that is just a bit strong can bring down the whole temple by himself.

Swastakowey wrote:
The hair wasnt his source of powers, god was, but he was not to cut his hair or god would take away his powers.

So God has very, very silly rules.

I went to have a quick look on Wikipedia. I found out this, and thought there was need for no more reading to assert the silliness of this silly tale:
“Samson attaches torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields of the Philistines, burning all in their wake.”
That sentence is magic.

“His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron".”
Totally not superman's strength

.

It also does say his hair grow back

.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
People who understand metaphor and analogy?

Wiki;
A metaphor is a figure of speech that identifies one thing as being the same as some unrelated other thing, thus strongly implying the similarities between the two. It is therefore considered more rhetorically powerful than a simile. While a simile compares two items, a metaphor directly equates them, and so does not apply any words of comparison, such as "like" or "as." Metaphor is a type of analogy and is closely related to other rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance including allegory, hyperbole, and simile.

Here I see only one story, that is not equated to anything in particular. People will try to make up what it is supposed to be equated to, and disagree. So it is at best a silly and obscure attempt at a metaphor, at worst a silly story.

**Compel**

Manchu wrote:
What you call a "silly creation myth" is fully present in the Ainulindalë. It is in fact an expanded re-telling of the opening verses of Genesis via a musical metaphor.

Except, that sort of thing Tolkien strongly disagreed with and was the source of many of his pub arguments with C.S. Lewis.

Letter 181, to Michael Straight (Ref: The Lord of The Rings)
"There is no 'allegory' , moral, political, or contemporary in the work at all."

In Letter 131, to Milton Waldman, on the subject of why he wished The Lord of The Rings to be an English mythology and why he felt Arthurian Legend was not what he wanted.

"For another, and more important thing: It is involved in and specifically contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world."

Yes, Tolkien believed in continuing the same religious 'truths' as he saw them (so, typical Christian values, be nice to people etc), in his stories but he would not simply retell the Genesis. In that same letter, he goes on to say.

"I dislike Allegory - the conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language."

**Manchu**

Let's just take the article in question as an example:

The article claims the Reapers are analogs for God. The argument is entirely based on the Reapers' role in engineering galactic civilization. Is that the key quality of God? The article invokes another metaphor: a child using a magnifying glass to kill ants. It is telling. For the child created none of the magnifying glass, nor the ants, nor the sun. So how does the article envision God? What is God's definitive attribute: the power to manipulate things at some relatively vast scale. This may very well be how lots of folks who don't think much about God think about God. But does it have anything to do with any actual religious tradition? No. It is solely a caricature developed to tautologically support the article's thesis.

The article brings up religion but fails to talk about it. Just like in the games it mentions.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Compel wrote:
Except, that sort of thing Tolkien strongly disagreed with

Please note Tolkien objected to allegory specifically and not to metaphor generally. That should help clear up your confusion. Also see Letter 142.

**mattyrm**

Manchu wrote:
It's not that religion itself is silly; rather, it's that we often insist on talking about it in silly ways.

Honestly I'm not even trying to be antagonistic, but no matter how you try to dress it up, every single religion always boils down to "magic" so how is that not silly?

No matter how sensible and nebular you try to make it sound, whether you say "beyond our understanding" or "outside of science" or "exists outside of our reality" or whatever, it still boils down to a belief in the supernatural.

Surely by definition that is silly?

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
What is God's definitive attribute: the power to manipulate things at some relatively vast scale.

Actually, a god's definitive attribute is being something invented by religions. Everything else depends on the religion, I guess. There is no definition of god(s) that works outside of “in this one, particular religion”. You can get depowered gods that are no more powerful, but still considered gods. Or small gods that are not powerful to begin with.