Re: [bookclub] Dad and the grey man (long)

[lpsmith@rice.edu (Lucian Paul Smith)]

[Note:  Spoilers ahoy for Grip, and a couple small ones for 'So Far' and
'Hitchhikers'.]

Second April (dns361@merle.acns.nwu.edu) wrote:
: The following is a "firestarter" post about Stephen Granade's game Losing
: Your Grip, under the auspices of the IF Book Club. The Book Club is
: organized by Lucian P. Smith; for more information, visit
: the web page at http://www.textfire.com/bookclub/. (With no period at the
: end.)

[snip excellent analysis of grey man and father--essentially, that the
grey man is an exaggeration of your father, with whom you have a poisoned
relationship already.]

: Frankie and the head (one and the same, or at least strongly linked,
: I think, given the mustache--Frankie seems to represent your powers of
: introspection, and burying the head suggests that you've tried to avoid
: introspection insofar as it might bring up something messy and
: complicated, i.e., the sludge, when you really start poking around, i.e.,
: getting the lights back on in the dark corners -- though who Sam is I
: can't fathom)

Ah, you've missed some clues here.  I give you a quote from the head:

   "An interesting end, don't you think?  Jiminy Cricket never had such an
   exit scene."

Jiminy Cricket was, of course, Pinnochio's conscience.  And, in fact, if
you type ">X CONSCIENCE" it gives you a description of the head again.

The moustache connection with Frankie is interesting, but I don't *think*
it means he's also your conscience.  Perhaps a play on words with his
name?  Your 'frankness' or some such?  That would tie into your assessment
of him as your introspection.  Would the fact that Frankie had the
sunglasses mean anything?  That you need something from him to be able to
see things clearly that would otherwise be overwhelming? 

I'm afraid I'm blanking of any similar puns with 'Sam', though.  And why
would Frankie swear at Sam when the sludge appears?  Did Sam have
something to do with the sludge's reappearance?  Frankie's later comments
seem to indicate Sam was only studying it.  Unless *Sam* is the
conscience/head.  [Checks game--no, 'X SAM' doesn't work when in the
presence of the head.  Scratch that theory.]

And what, exactly, does it mean that the head's your conscience?  Going
through the game without one is another connection with Pinnochio--in the
original, Pinnochio stomps on Jiminy near the very beginning of book, and
goes through the rest of his adventures without a conscience.  Does anyone
know what kicking the head at the beginning does to the end game?  In
fact, there are three events I'd like to know about:

-kicking the head
-vaporizing the sludge
-freeing the fairies

All three (I think) affect how the end game plays out.  But it's
disheartening to replay the game trying different possibilities, even with
TADS's @replay option.  Anyone know?  And if not, is it kosher to ask
Stephen about it?

[Aside about game design here:  though it's an interesting concept to have
these three events change the specifics of the endgame, I fear the effort
ultimately fails if the influence is essentially invisible to the
player.  Zarf commented on this in his post about the game--though the
exietence of multiple possibilites may be intriguing, if it's not obvious
that more possibilities exist, a player will only see one, for better or
for worse.  If the point is the interplay between the differences, the
point gets lost.  I'm not, here, complaining about the difference between
clenching or relaxing your fist at the end.  That's tightly enough coupled
with the results that the player can fool around with it and see both (not
unlike how you answer the final question in 'So Far').  But to have an
early puzzle affect the very last scene *with no way to go back and change
it* is, I think, bad design.  (A counter-example:  the Hitchhiker's space
fleet puzzle, which you can either solve as Arthur at the beginning, or as
Ford later.)  Thus ends the aside.]

So what does it mean that Terry's conscience's services "were no longer
needed in the hall, so [he] was turned out in this rain,"?  Certainly, it
makes Terry more culpable in his relationship with his father, and makes
the strings a stronger reality in the end.  I suppose the whole quest of
the game could be to reinstate your conscience, in a manner of speaking.

This could also explain the second fit.  If, the first time through, Terry
was only out for him/herself, it would explain why (s)he didn't help
people.  The second fit would then be a 'what if?' scenario, where Terry
could see the positive results from taking other people into
consideration.

: 3. But the point of Grip, to my eye, is straightening out your
: relationship with Dad, and acknowledging the great extent to which you're
: responsible for the problems by (a) inventing a sort of shadow- dad and
: (b) provoking and manipulating your father rather than trying to
: understand.

Are there specific examples that exist in Grip that point to the
second?  I agree that that's what you're *told* you did, but I don't
remember ever actually *seeing* it.  I could be mis-remembering, though,
or it could be in bits I missed.

-Lucian