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Game Theory: Until Dawn's TRAGIC Hero

Jun 04, 2021
Stephanie: "By the way, you are resisting today." Mat: "Until Dawn doesn't affect me." "OH MY GOD!" "OH!" *Intro to

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plays* Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show whose viewers wouldn't be surprised to see an episode dedicated to Sam's anti-gravity towel. Oh really! She's being chased by a psychotic killer and it's still like this? And then he crawls through the vents and comes out so clean? This towel is clearly

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-worthy! But not today. So if you've watched our GTLive live streams, then you'll know that we recently completed a match of the horror

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Until Dawn. *Devastated MatPat* "No!!" If you haven't watched our GTLive live streams, you probably STILL know that we recently completed a playthrough of the horror game Until Dawn because YouTube hasn't enabled the option to allow subscribers to subscribe to those notifications.
game theory until dawn s tragic hero
Hey! Don't blame the messenger. Anyway, chances are if you watch gamers on YouTube, you've seen this choose-your-own-adventure teen murder simulator hybrid; A game that combines so many horror movie tropes that you'd think they brought Keenen Wayans out of retirement and had him make Scary Movie: The Video Game. But here's the thing, while we were all making fun of the game... Mat: "We're playing a game that encourages you not to move the controller." "COVIVING GAME!" The graphics are really good, but still not good enough... Stephanie: "I couldn't get out of the Uncanny Valley on that one." Mat: *laughs* And Hammy Dialouge...
game theory until dawn s tragic hero

More Interesting Facts About,

game theory until dawn s tragic hero...

We all missed something: the point. ...along with one or two totems. Whether intentional or not, Until Dawn is more than just a simulator of horror movie clichés, and the villain is much more menacing than a gangly spider-zombie. It's a much darker, much sadder, and much more serious game than any of us YouTube gamers thought, and it carries an incredibly serious message about mental illness and the nature of choice. Now before we continue, this is a big spoiler alert; We cover everything from gameplay, so if you haven't seen any of the hundreds of Let's Plays and still want to experience it for yourself, come back now.
game theory until dawn s tragic hero
But if you want to completely change the way you look at the game, spend a few more minutes with me. Are we all clean? Good. Now, this game is a blast not only to play, but to discuss as well. You see, the game not-so-subtly points out that it is based on the Butterfly Effect, where the decisions you make early in the game have significant ramifications later in the game. It is a game of choice. And what makes this game endlessly debatable and watchable is seeing how different choices lead to different gruesome murders for our... *record scratch* God, are they 18 and 19?
game theory until dawn s tragic hero
Oh man, now I feel really creepy for trying to put Jess in her underwear... No! No, it is NOT when some of these children are literally under the age of consent! Creepy revelations about everyone's true ages aside, make the right decisions, nail every QTE, and you'll miraculously be able to keep everyone alive... UNTIL DAWN. Roll credits. *CinemaSins ding* Well...not all. Meet Josh, Beth and Hannah's older brother. We see in the game's prologue that a year before the events of the game, Beth and Hannah died accidentally after a prank went wrong. Yes, you can roll the clip one last time.
Fast forward to the present day, where, halfway through the game, he discovers that Josh is The Psychopath, a masked madman who sets elaborately sadistic, Saw-like traps for his quote-unquote "friends" to make them pay for death. of his two sisters. Well, that and getting everyone a few thousand clicks on a certain video sharing platform. Ah! Everyone is a vlogger nowadays. Now, aside from the supernatural and cannibalistic Wendigos, Josh is the villain of the game and tortures his friends. As such, it stands to reason that he is the only playable character who will never survive the night, regardless of your choices.
He only has one of two fates: have his head crushed by a Wendigo or, if you find enough clues, become a Wendigo himself, a fitting end for a crazed maniac. Except, he hopes. Josh's story is not so simple and straightforward. It's true that the torture of his friends is extreme and he's not opposed to going so far as to beat Ashley, but none of his actions directly lead to anyone's death. His traps are only there to scare, not to kill. Fake bodies, fake bullets, saws that don't go all the way down... Now compare it to Mike, aka the town bike that anyone can ride... *honk* who can kill Emily in cold blood, and the world will be rejoices. *party noise* Or how about Ashley, who in some scenarios can choose to kill Chris while he begs for her life by simply keeping the cabin door closed?
Then, in the final scene, Sam can actively choose to blow up the lodge early, killing everyone else there. And then Matt, who can basically leave his girlfriend, Emily, for dead when a tower falls. Seriously, the game gives you many, MANY, opportunities to kill Emily. In short, virtually every playable character in this game can perform an action that will directly lead to someone else's death. Except Jessica. And except Josh. But unlike all the other characters, Josh doesn't get a happy ending. And of course, I understand it. He tortured his friends and, yes, that's really bad. But don't let Beth's yoga pants distract you from the truth.
What these teens did to Hannah was really bad too. These are not good people. They set up a prank where Hannah's crush Mike takes her to the point where she starts undressing, hoping for a little totem action, if you know what I mean~ All while they secretly film and laugh at her embarrassment. It's ruthless! And unlike the quote-unquote "

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es" of the story who did this out of sheer meanness, Josh's "Saw" tricks aren't just born out of revenge; He has another excuse: mental illness. Throughout the game we gradually learn that Josh has had behavioral problems since he was eleven.
Since then, he has been treated with various medications for depression, in total, for nine years. And we learn that the mysterious analyst who appears between chapters of the game was actually Josh's psychiatrist who was helping him cope with the loss of his two sisters. When we finally get to Josh's eyes at the end of the game, Chapter 10, it's clear that the vision of his sisters haunts him. Through his hallucinations, we see that he blames himself largely for their deaths, despite having passed out that night and physically unable to do anything to help them. Now, does all this excuse his eagerness to tie two people to chairs, forcing one to choose between her life and the life of his crush, all while spinning saw blades descend from the ceiling?
No, but it certainly sheds light on Josh's motives, showing that he is neither a sadistic killer nor a cruel sociopath. He is a confused and distressed child! Remember, these children are between 18 and 20 years old. *zero log* Still, I'm still a little freaked out about Jess... And the game really acknowledges that. *another record scratch* It's not the creepy thing about Jess, just the fact that Josh needs help. In alternate dialogue for Josh's big reveal as Psycho, Sam makes it clear that his behavior is more of a cry for help than anything malicious. Ultimately, Josh is a sympathetic character who needs help, medical help.
He helps that, frankly, he doesn't get. And *this* is where we go from Josh in a weird gray area, a character who did horrible things but had some excuses for it, to someone who is completely innocent. Throughout the game, we can reconstruct Josh's illness based on the symptoms he demonstrates. Chapter 10 shows us that he clearly has very vivid visual hallucinations. He also has auditory hallucinations, hearing his sisters' voices in his head and Psycho's. However, it is important to note here that Psycho, who wears the mask, is not a separate personality, which would change the diagnosis of him.
As we know? Well, if Sam escapes from being chased by Josh, he'll be able to find a tape of him practicing his "Psycho Talk." I mean, every good masked killer needs a catchphrase, right? The Psychopath is just a character he represents for the purposes of this theatrical event he had planned, *not* a split personality. So we have visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, but Josh is also deluded. The illusion that this is all a joke or a fun game; that this would actually be socially acceptable to his friends. He also has delusions of grandeur. Seriously, in their opening video: "Hello friends and fans"?
Who is he talking to anyway? Seriously, his channel has like seven subscribers, and after the events of the game, he'll lose them all. I'd say that's a pretty solid reason to unsubscribe from a channel. He also operates under the illusion that his friends don't care about him, feeling so persecuted that he physically cuts himself in half simply to show how little they care. ...When that couldn't be further from the truth. Finally, we see his speech deteriorate into an incoherent ramble. Based on these symptoms, Josh appears to have schizophrenia, a brain disorder in which a person has trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy and has trouble managing normal emotions.
Symptoms include: everything we just mentioned. Visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions, social withdrawal, disorganized speech and the condition tends to appear between the ages of 16 and 30. You see, that age joke at the beginning wasn't just a non sequitur, it actually had a purpose. All in all, it sounds pretty simple, right? But then we looked at his medical records. The list of doctors listed to treat you for the last 9 years, including Dr. Hill, are all doctors, meaning they are psychiatrists, people who went to medical school, had a year of medical internships, and have 3 years of home. to evaluate and treat mental health conditions.
Training that now allows them to prescribe medications to their patients. So it seems like Josh is seeing the right people for his problems, except apparently he's not. Looking at the list of medications and treatments he has been given, they are all for extreme depression. You see, nerve cells in the brain communicate using chemicals called neurotransmitters. I mentioned them before in my video about the addictive qualities of mobile games and, as you can imagine, there are many. But the most famous are dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. Well, depression and schizophrenia are currently thought to be linked to different neurotransmitters: schizophrenia is linked to dopamine overactivity, while depression is thought to be linked to a decrease in serotonin production.
However, the medications we see Josh being prescribed focus on serotonin. Fluoxetine is an SSRI, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Which, to greatly simplify, aims to increase the amount of serotonin in the brain. Duloxetine is a selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that, again, leaves dopamine, Josh's real problem, untreated. And both amitriptyline and phenelzine are some of the first antidepressants developed. Effective, yes, but now replaced by newer medications with fewer side effects. And none of them focused primarily on what Josh's real problem is: regulating the amount of dopamine in his brain. Knowing this, the results of Josh's medical report are not surprising.
Each time, the medication did not solve his problem, and he occasionally resorted to taking more in an attempt to see some kind of result, some kind of relief. And here's why! He was being treated for the wrong disorder! His main problem is schizophrenia, not depression. Of course, the medications would have limited effectiveness; They were doing nothing to treat the primary symptoms of hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and disorganized speech. What does this mean? It means that Josh wasn't getting the help he needed to mitigate his condition and brings us to the true meaning of Until Dawn. In a game that prides itself on being able to choose its characters, Josh had no choice.
Schizophrenia is closely linked to genetics, so he had no choice but to contract the disorder in the first place. Josh had no choice when he was placed in the hands of experts, who misjudged and mistreated his condition. He fainted and had no choice when the rest of the group made a prank that would ultimately kill his two younger sisters. And even dead, he has no choice. You, as a player, cannot save him. No matter what you do, there is no happy ending for Josh. He was doomed from the beginning. In a game where everything revolves around choice, probably the most important choice you can have is to forgive Josh; looking past his actions, the horrible things he did, and choosing to save his life, recognizing him asthe young man in need of help that he is.
But you. Can not. Do that. When you look at it this way, Until Dawn is a great metaphor, where the real monster is psychological disorder. It attacks at random, has no mercy and gives you no chance to escape, nor to run and hide. And the real villain of the game is Dr. Hill and the system he didn't know enough about, or just didn't care enough about, to give Josh the help he so desperately needed. Now that is a real horror game. But hey, that's just a theory; A GAME THEORY! Thanks for watching. :) Welcome back to the SUPER AMAZING FINAL CARD TOURNAMENT Today we cover a game full of sexy characters and important choices.
So in honor of that, today's poll has an important question for you: Hot or not? The undead wendigo Bangable or a face only a mother could love Click one to choose or click the links in the description to cast your vote And find out next week if you'd swipe right or left ♪ Bow chicka bow wow ♪ And hey! If you want to see some fun highlights from our game of Until Dawn Click here to check out the GTLive channel for moments like this: *Josh screams* As MatPat and Steph repeatedly tell you to stop "Oh no, it's actually killing him!" "Oh, it's - oh no!" "Oh no!" "I actually killed hi, oh my!" Creepy to the max!
And that's all for today, so if you'll excuse me, I have some real-time strategizing to do.

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