On Life as an N.P.C.
And how scripts can liberate a perennial object from [the farce of] performing authenticity...
While walking to work and thinking of the astrological weather, the thought occurs to me that the most fulfilling thing one can do is live a life unscripted. I suppose you understand what that means, as it verges on the kind of cliché you might find on a motivational poster in a guidance counselor’s office. But what, exactly, do I mean by this? What prompted the thought?
At stake here are questions of fate and free will, conscription and sovereignty, those age-old red herrings we find ourselves ensnared in after too precious a cunctation. The astrological weather, so to speak, prescribes for me (and us) a set of gravitational circumstances and potential outcomes that are beyond my (our) grasp. If Mercury is scheduled to retrograde (i.e. appear to transit backward across the sky) four times in a year, there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s the astrological weather. If I was born under a sun that sets and rises against the constellation of Leo, while another constellation was just mounting above the horizon—I am a Leo sun with a [blank] rising sign and this means…etc. It is, in essence, a prescriptive system with, arguably, pre-determined outcomes that extend even into the subconscious life of the native.
So I’m on my way to work, as mentioned, and thinking to myself how liberating it feels to live life off book, indulging in whims, pursuing dreams, engaging in the spontaneous. I’m sure you’d already gleaned the meaning of a life unscripted, but I felt a need to explain. There are few things I love more in life than defying the odds and expectations put upon me (for good or bad). But to live in defiance of the script is not quite living unscripted, is it? To live unscripted, I think, is to live in accordance with my own will, disregarding completely that which presumes to know for me who I am, what will be, etc. All of this on my rainy walk to work.
Now I’m finally at work, in uniform, answering the same old questions from the same old dweebs with the same old replies, and it dawns on me that I’m actually just an N.P.C. in a world of P.C.s. I exist, in this space, in this world, in service of those with freedom of choice and consequence.
My job demands a fair amount of repetition. I’d bet yours does too. In fact, I’d go so far as to say all of us live lives governed by forms of repetition. Whether by morning ablutions and breakfast, daily commutes, religious or secular rites, primetime television, habitual phone checking, and on and on. Repetition is an inescapable facet of life on a planet rotating on an axis, revolving around a small, yellow sun. But this particular job of mine, menial, minimum wage, like the order-taker at your favorite drive-thru, requires that I repeat over and over the same thing, as if from a script.
Repetition is a funny phenomenon. There is the sort of repetition Søren Kierkegaard examines in his proto-existential oeuvre—that tied to memory, to commitment (in love and faith), and to ever-deeper understanding. Kierkegaard’s is the repetition one undertakes in focused practice, whether in meditation or in developing forms of muscle memory or in rehearsing one’s reasons for loving another being. It is a nurturing of self and soul in a space where the ideal and the real have fortuitously collided.
And then there’s the sort of cadent repetition a McDonald’s requires of its employees, the sort of repetition most corporations require of their employees in keeping with a standard. This form of repetition often feels meaningless, without vector, because it has no bearing on the life (the hopes, dreams, whims) of the individual tasked with repeating it. In these instances, it seems there’s no room for an enriching, Kierkegaard-like existential experience, no matter how many times you repeat “welcome to McDonald’s, can I take your order?”
My job demands a fair amount of repetition. I’d bet yours does too. In fact, I’d go so far as to say all of us live lives governed by forms of repetition. Whether its paying your bills or picking your kids up from school or doing your taxes or walking your dog or feeding your cat or whatever whatever whatever. Repetition is an inescapable facet of life on a planet rotating on an axis, revolving around an ancient, yellow sun. But this particular job of mine, menial, minimum wage, like the cashier at a Target, requires that I repeat over and over the same thing, as if from a script. And in the process of repeating the same cadent repetitions required of me, I realized I’m actually just an N.P.C. in a world full of P.C.s. I exist, in this space, in this world, in service of those with freedom of choice and consequence.
Repetition is a funny phenomenon.
NPC
noun, gaming
short for non-player character.
If you’ve ever played a character-driven video game or tabletop RPG, you’ve undoubtedly encountered an NPC. These non-player or non-playable characters in video games have their origins in tabletop role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons where such characters, created and performed exclusively by the dungeon master, would be situated in the world to help (or hinder) players in their particular quests. In the world of video games, NPCs are considerably less dynamic than they are in tabletop RPGs where dungeon masters can play through dynamic conversations and choices with party members. Digital NPCs are limited by the dialogue trees written for them. As of the writing of this piece, NPCs in video games have not yet achieved the kind of sentience required to be fully interactive, fully autonomous beings within the logics of their respective game worlds.
In either case, NPCs generally share one common trait: they are non-playable. Of course, exceptions have been made. NPCs have been adopted as player characters on occasion in tabletop RPGs, especially in cases where one player’s character/avatar has died. And in video games, notable NPCs have been featured in their own spin-offs or sequels (we might consider Knuckles, who debuted in Sonic 3, as one such NPC). But, again, the NPC is variously designed to flesh out the world, build setting and plot, contribute to the development of the player character in substantive (and intangible) ways—not supplant the PC as the game’s primary agonist. Moreover, the player character (especially in video games) is limited in their interactions with NPCs.
In the 21st century, we more or less think of NPCs as scripted characters whose dialogue options are eventually exhausted through repeated interactions. And this notion of the NPC has inspired a number of memes and jokes, none more pervasive in the year of our Lord 2022 than NPC Wojak.
NPC Wojak is a variation on the earlier MS Paint generated meme Wojak (or, feels guy). By robbing the already deracinated Wojak of its vaguely humanoid facial features, NPC Wojak is meant as a critique of those in digital space whose opinions have been deemed milquetoast and/or conformed to popular opinion. Typically you’ll find NPC Wojak in unsavory corners of digital space where the content generated appeals to the 21st century Holden Caulfield who feels they’ve been surrounded by phonies, denied a voice, gagged by leftist media, or some other such unhinged conspiratorial abstraction that relies on scapegoating (as excuse for the acute sting of experienced smallness and anonymity). Those they see as folded into the mechanisms of their perceived oppression (or the oppression of others), they consider NPCs.
There’s a beautiful irony to this, the wojak calling the NPC whack. But we’ll come back to that later. For now, I’d like somewhat to dispel the notion that such a meme perpetuates about the discursive dead-end of the NPC.
I think the NPC (and being an NPC) provides a useful model for the preservation of privacy and authenticity in a century thus far predicated on transparency, sharing, social connectivity, personalized choice, and surveillance.
In a way, you can judge the immersive quality of an RPG by its NPCs and their variability. The greater the variety of NPCs and their functions, the more effort the developers put into building the game’s world and the greater the odds it might satisfy the PC’s taste for escape. Needless to say, in the still young history of video gaming, there are more NPCs by volume than there are notable PCs. Too many for me to count. Even the original 1986 Legend of Zelda has a handful of NPCs that one can interact with in the overworld. They provide hints, offer items and rupees, heal you, or function as a kind of objective correlative for the PC’s narrative (plot-driven) quest. Among my favorite NPCs are the Merchant from Resident Evil 4 (What’re ya buyin?!) and dearest Mom from Pokémon Red/Blue/Green.
I’ve written about Pokémon in the past, particularly my experience playing Pokémon Blue as a boy and my breeding endeavors as an adult in Pokémon Y. But, I’ve never explored my quasi-oedipal fascination with Mom. I remember back in 1998 finally getting my hands on a copy of Pokémon Blue (because I loved Blastoise). I remember my giddy anticipation, slotting the cartridge into the back of my Gameboy, turning it on, watching the now iconic 8-bit opening intro.
I can’t remember what I named my player character, but I do remember the odd sense of wistfulness I felt leaving my NPC mother behind. It seemed so odd to me that a boy of (maybe) ten would leave his mother and go on a solo adventure across an uncharted territory full of potentially dangerous monsters. I wanted to talk to her, to confide in her my trepidation. I wanted to know where my father was and if I’d encounter him out there in the world (of Kanto). Most of all, I wanted to know if she’d be ok all alone.
But Mom only had a whopping two dialogue options. The first:
"Right. All boys leave home someday. It said so on TV. Prof. Oak, next door, is looking for you."
And then, after receiving your Squirtle from Professor Oak (because I know you did the right thing and chose Squirtle):
“…if you drive your Pokémon too hard, they'll dislike you. You should take a rest. [heals party] Oh good! You and your Pokémon are looking great! Take care now!"
She heals your party. Which is a beautiful and simple gesture from a loving and noble mother. But no, she will not reveal to you that she is worried or that she feels lonely or that she misses your father even though he’s a whole piece of shit who disappeared when the test came back positive and recently called for the first time in ten years when he saw a headline about a familiar-looking boy who beat the Elite Four at the tender age of…ten. Your NPC mother remains strong and silent, never burdening her dear PC son with more than his young mind should be tasked with handling. (Some credible fan theories suggest the PC’s father died in a war.)
By Gen II (Pokémon Gold & Silver), this matronly wall of silence was changed. Arguably the greatest Pokémon game of all time and one of the best gaming sequels, Gold & Silver improved on the formula established by Red/Blue/Green in nearly every way, including its NPC Mom. This time, Mom could call you via Pokégear. She’d also save a portion of your earnings for you and, with that money, buy you useful items or decorations for your bedroom (which she’d sheepishly apologize for, as any responsible, God-fearing momager would).
As an added Easter egg in Gen II (spoiler alert), you (as the PC) were able to visit the NPC Mom from the first game in Pallet Town. This time, obviously, she’s not your NPC Mom (even if she’ll always be your mother). When you talk to her and wordlessly express how beautiful she still is and how she hasn’t aged a bit (pun-intended) since 1998, she replies:
"Hi! Red's been away for a long time. He hasn't called either, so I have no idea where he is or what he's been doing. They say that no word is proof that he's doing fine, but I do worry about him."
If you interact with her again:
"I worry about Red getting hurt or sick, but he's a boy. I'm proud that he is doing what he wants to do."
And that’s it. Just like in Gen I, she only has two dialogue options. Except, this time, you can palpably feel her loneliness. Unlike your Gen II mother, she is unable to call her son. She hasn’t heard from him. She has no idea he’s the region’s champion. He hasn’t bothered to call her (just as you, in the first game, never bothered to call her—because you couldn’t). There she remains, frozen in time like Whistler’s Mother.
I cherish NPCs the way one cherishes crust on a great pizza or the marshmallows in a mug of spicy hot chocolate. It’s the presence of the NPC that allows the PC the illusion of freedom and choice. And yes, of course NPCs exist in service of the PCs particular set of verbs, like everything else one can interact with. But it’s also the NPC that provides a narrative framework, a mirror to the PC and the quirks of their play-style (a term we might also interpret as epistemology).
I don’t mean to imply that the NPC in its scripted fixity is somehow more endowed with freedom than the PC. I rather mean to suggest that there’s something liberating, powerful even, in the absolute opacity of the NPC. They deny us the pleasure of becoming our plaything. They just can’t be played, which is to say manipulated.
There are, of course, hackers and any% speedrunners capable of bending the rules of the world created by the developers. But even in this extreme exercise of gaming agency, the player is still reacting to and against the script. Playing in defiance of the script is not quite playing unscripted, is it? To play unscripted is to play completely in accordance with one’s own will, disregarding that which presumes to know for you, who you are, what your verbs can accomplish in the world.
While the PC is scratching out little tricks and trying to min-max their custom build, they do so in (or against) the world built for them. And that world belongs to the NPC.
I’ve strayed a bit from my original thesis. I mean here to praise the NPC, to extol the virtues of living within a scripted life, and to remind that every repetition is an opportunity to discover something new in the minutia of the mundane.
Repetition is a funny phenomenon.
My work demands a fair amount of repetition. I’d bet yours does too. In fact, I’d go so far as to say all of us live lives governed by forms of repetition. Whether its Monday Night Football, Taco Tuesday, your 9 to 5, your nightshift, your graveyard shift, responding to emails, checking and double checking the figures, and so on and so forth. Repetition is an inescapable facet of life on a planet rotating on an axis, revolving around a dying, yellow sun. But this particular job, menial, unpaid, like the mendicant crier on the corner announcing the coming apocalypse, requires that I repeat over and over the same thing, as if from a script. And in the process of repeating the same cadent repetitions required of me, I realize I’m actually just an N.P.C. in a world full of P.C.s. I exist, in this space, in this world, in service of those with freedom of choice and consequence.
The only difference is that I, as an NPC, preserve a sense of self not governed by the whims and perceptions of those who entreat my service. Who I am authentically is not publicly available for consumption.
This is the strange irony of those that wield NPC Wojak with vitriol against those they’ve deemed SJWs or too Woke, who they’ve accused of following the death-drive machinations of an imperious Left, who they’ve chided as degradations of a free society by choosing conformity. The truth of who occupies these digitally aggressive quasi-terroristic micro-communities is also one of scripts, one of torching and hiding. By dint of their critique, they become the NPC in a world full of PCs trying to play the hero. This is their world. And in their world, you’ll always be playing by their rules.
Where the internet troll differs from the typical NPC is in their moral alignment. The NPC is generally neutral, while the aforementioned internet troll or spammer (as reactive NPC) is deliberately antagonistic. In this sense, they constitute the variety of NPC I like to call a baddie (mobile objects). Baddies always looking for smoke. But baddies too can be considered NPCs. Those just happen to be the ones you gotta watch out for, heroic reader. (Or just maybe you’re eager to hunt or be hunted by these baddies…)
Regardless of moral alignment, the primary directive of the NPC is that you let the hero(s) come to you. And while the hero is hustling to collect gems, filling out the quest log, slaying evil…the NPC lives purposefully (ahistorically) beyond the rapacious gaze of anyone or anything seeking control, committed to the authentic expression of their being in place of its public (and only ever partial) performance.
I don’t mean to imply that the NPC in its scripted fixity is somehow more endowed with freedom than the PC. I rather mean to suggest that there’s something liberating, powerful even, in the absolute opacity of the NPC. They deny us the pleasure of becoming our plaything. They just can’t be played, which is to say manipulated. They resist by living authentically inside of or behind a script used exclusively to interface with a world not privileged to know (what?):