Talk-fest Tuesday: Control (Patreon)

Feedback from the little survey I recently did was clear: people want to hear more about my thought process and the world the characters inhabit. I am going to try do more of this and I am going to try make Tuesdays the day for it. 

I thought I would start by talking about some of the major themes in Lunar for me. I was always amused as a kid during high school when the other kids would complain that the teacher was reading themes into the story that weren't there. "The author wasn't thinking of all that when they wrote their book!"

Of course, an author creates themes in their work, they may not always be conscious themes, they may be themes buried under layers of their own experience which are hard to even talk about. For me, the themes of Lunar are deeply personal. I would say that most of the themes have been intentionally injected into the game, whilst some have been "discovered" by me over time. 

** spoiler alert ** 

Control

Control is a big theme in the game and probably the largest overarching theme in the game. This was driven home to me when one of my good friends rightly pointed out to me that all the sex scenes I had written in the early draft of the game were non-consensual. Ouch!

I have since fixed that, but my obsession with control is quite apparent in the game. Let's start from the inside out. 

The story for the first episode is all about how Red figures out what is happening with his own head - why he can't remember anything. it turns out that Red is being controlled by Blue. Blue has been obsessed by Red and feels a need to control him. Some relationships end up this way: with one party, fearing rejection, needs to control every aspect of the other character's life. 

Blue represents institutionalised control in the game: jealous, brimming with self-importance, holds all the leverage, but potentially tragically misguided. You might recognise Blue as being a thinly veiled commentary on the police, or rather how the police could behave if they allowed their own selfishness to direct their actions: he's quick to lock Black up without even trying to find out what his circumstances are. He also leveraged his privelaged access to manipulate Green into being his co-conspirator. 

In contrast, Pink (being the captain) is the true authority on the ship and represents leadership. He demonstrates in the final scenes of episode one just how institutionalised control falls short of true leadership. Pink is a true leader: the clear and decisive way he deals with Blue goes to show that institutionalised control  is actually weak without true leadership. 

Pink in and of himself has some severe issues with his father, who is the ruling monarch and directly represents patriarchy. I could write all day about how Pink's relationship with his father mirrors my own relationship with my father. As a monarch, Pink's father is also an appeal to divinity: the monarch is by divine appointed after all! Pink's father therefore represents the control of the figurehead. Pink's rejection of that is a big part of his development as a character and it's the conflict that drives the arc of all the stories. In many ways, Lunar is all about Pink. 

This leads me on to another, broader theme of control, bigger even than the state: religious control. If you read all the lore in the game, you will understand that the world the game is set in has a strong religious overtone. It's indelibly linked to the ruling class: the rabbits. 

When I set up the game in the first place I wanted to set up an unexpected outcome of the little rabbits being the rulers. But how would herbivores let alone little bunnies even put themselves into that position of authority? Religion came as the obvious answer. I use a female (the "priestess") to represent religion so as to distinguish her from the patriarchy and also so as to hopefully not draw too many parallels with our existing religions in our world: I don't mean to make any commentary on the benefit of religion (I am religious myself) I just want to acknowledge the strong controlling power of religion.

There's also social control in place. A consequence of the religious control is there have to be winners and losers: goodies and baddies. The cats (being natural predators) have become something of a pariah. The canines, however, have become the willing paw of the law. Why is that? Well, the canines are typically social creatures (more so than cats) and so the social control works better on them. Add to this the dog trait of loyalty and you have the dogs playing the role of royalists and zealots.      

Finally, to the meta-control: one of the things that excites me about the game is the idea that I can invoke an emotion in you, the reader. This is the same as the conceit within "inception". If I can leave you with a deep sense of affection, betrayal, anger, love. Then I will have done my job.