Envying the Heroes

I'm reading Eldest, the second book in the Eragon trilogy. It's like most other adventure books in the style of Lord of the Rings. A group of mismatched heros from different races team up for a certain middle-earth, magical mission. In Eldest, the mission is to defeat an evil ruler named Galbatorix.

Reading this reminds me of a video I watched yesterday about turning your everyday tasks into games. Most of our time is spent doing boring and seemingly meaningless tasks. Tasks that don't have a clear goal or objective, tasks that don't specify the resources needed in order to complete them and tasks that don't challenge the skills you already posses. Aaron Dignan, the guy in the above video and who has been studying the plague of boredom in our society suggest that we should view employ game mechanics in our lives.

In every game (well, at least the well designed ones) you know what the objective is, you are given obstacles along the way that help you learn new skills needed to continue, you are given instant feedback (if you kill 3 enemies in a row you get extra points and if you fall off a cliff you die) and you know when the game is over because it says "Game Over" or you save the princess and fireworks explode on the screen.

Most of the things we do everyday are not as structured as the games we love to play. And I've just realized that fiction is the same way. While reading about the hero's journey in Eldest I envy him his clear cut life. He knows what he needs to do (kill Galbatorix) he knows how he's going to do it (use magic) he knows where to go for more skills and resources (training with the Elves) and he knows when his goal is accomplished (either Galbatorix is dead or he, Eragon, is dead).

I'm beginning to wonder if we like fantasy because of the magic and action and general super-ness of it all or if we like fantasy and games because that's the only way we get structured experiences. Would you rather work on something in which you don't know what to do next, you can't use your skills and you aren't getting feedback or something where the objective is outlined, the steps are right in front of you and you get immediate feedback along the way?

Yeah, I'd choose the second option too.

For some reason experimentation, playing, problem solving and risk taking are engineered out of us. These qualities are viewed as immature or a waste of time and energy. But these are the qualities that make us fall in love with heros. We put the qualities we most want in ourselves into the characters we create and we envy these qualities in the characters we read about. But what about embracing these qualities in ourselves?