I seem to have puppets on the brain these past few days. In part, it has something (in part) to do with purchasing and playing a game that I wasn’t sure I would like. But that’s not the only thing prompting the ponders on puppets.
“The Lies of P” is a videogame that is currently on sale on the Steam store (a digital videogame retailer, for those of you who are not into such things). It is a game that, while I liked the gaslamp-fantasy/Belle Époque aesthetics, I am always wary of games that promote themselves as “soulslikes” [named after the genre’s early titles “Dark Souls” and “Demon’s Souls”], those unforgiving games where you learn how to play or your avatar dies. Repeatedly. Until you learn how to play. They are largely a miss for me, although I have liked a few soulslikes and I keep trying to “get good” and “learn to play” as various titles are released that intrigue me.
“Lies” is loosely based on the story of Pinocchio and takes place in a world filled with automatons (puppets) that take over the unsavory daily tasks. Something causes them to glitch and paradise turns very dark as they murder their former masters holding their strings. The player is “P”, a special kind of puppet that has fewer “strings”, e.g., rules by which it must abide. While other puppets cannot lie, for example, P is allowed some free will and can lie — which give P more humanity, but I’m sure will have some drawbacks (including losing trust if you lie too much). And I’m guessing his nose grows…
I’m quite enjoying my time in P’s world, especially because they do have a difficulty slider for those of us less adept at action gameplay. I don’t play it at either extreme for difficulty settings, but right in the middle — which allows me a chance to enjoy the storytelling and still have a challenge to overcome.
That long explanation aside, I have been pondering not only the story of the game’s world, but I have also been thinking about a phrase from the 80s that showed up on some t-shirts of the time and follows a similar theme. I forget for certain which band had the slogan (possibly Public Image Limited, aka PIL), but I recall it being a very divisive in the so-called punk scene on a local level. The phrase: You Are A Product. The reason I think it might have been PIL is that it was a thing around the same time as their “generic” album came out, named “Album”, “Cassette” or “Compact Disc” (depending on the media purchased), but there were several bands at the time that followed those same themes and it might have been someone else.
There were some young rebels who didn’t agree with the sentiment. Quite vehemently opposed to the idea. “I am NOT a product”, someone had painted on their leather biker jacket in the same very way that several other punks did. By rejecting the idea, you became the idea. That was the double-bind that most people could not quite grasp. The only way to escape being a product by virtual of this double-bind was to not give it air, to shrug and say… “so what?”
And even that last act snared you if you vocalized it. By reacting at all to the statement, you declared yourself a “product”.
Personally, I just chuckled when I saw the puzzle and moved on, only recalling the phrase as an amusing curiosity of my teen years — much the same as getting skaters with their anarchy symbols on their boards to cheer when I would fist pump and shout, “Anarchy Rules!”
I’ll let you, dear readers, puzzle out why that was amusing for me. Wordplay has always been a pastime of mine.
Circling back to puppets: all this comes around to the idea that I’m not convinced that we aren’t all being tugged by some kind of strings and being made to dance to someone else’s tune. Even apparent rebels are subject to those strings, even as they are being reactionary to them. After all, what is rebellion but trading in one kind of conformity for another? Is that conformity more “underground”? Sure, at least until it crossed the threshold and becomes mainstream, which most solid rebellions seem to do. Is a rebellion against the puppet-masters still a rebellion when the people just hand off their strings to another master?
Is there any escape from the puppet-masters? Or are we always so bound?
Social media, political tribalism, advertising, fashion and music… are these not all strings that bind us?
Careful of that double-bind when you answer.
28 responses to “half-penny thoughts | 03jul25”
I had a chuckle about the hidden meaning of “Anarchy Rules.” Perhaps if people had paid more attention, and had given careful consideration to ideologies they espoused as youngsters, we wouldn’t be in the mess that we’re in now. It’s so much easier to mindlessly join a “movement” en masse than to deeply ponder ideologies and implications.
Glad you caught it. I never doubted most visitors here would, but it does require a little pondering.
I agree, and I find myself on occasion getting swept up in the “idéologie du jour”, but then I force myself to think about what I am actually promoting and/or thinking and I tend to dial it back afterwards.
I am a firm believer that, for all the profession of wanting to be free-thinkers and have free-will, most people are ultimately happy to let someone do the thinking and deciding for them. I see a lot of that today.
‘By rejecting the idea you became the idea’. Reminds me of the scene in Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Bryan’ where Bryan tries to dissuade the crowd that, speaking with one voice, has decided to follow him as a Messiah. ‘You are all individuals’ he tells their chorus of praise. Silence. Then ‘I’m not an individual’ comes one voice from the back. Classic. Enjoy your gaming and have a good week. 😎
“I want to be different just like everyone else,” is a phrase I’ve used often to illustrate the absurdity of that mindset.
I forgot all about that scene from Brian. 🤣
It’s a long weekend with the Fourth of July holiday, I should be able to find some time to just chill. You have a good weekend yourself!
I will. Get chilling and enjoy! 🙂 🙂
Hilarious movie
The best. ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.’ 🙂
🤣
Ah the crisis of conformity. The one solution is to not give a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks . . . but we human beings are not wired that way.
Some are less susceptible to giving a rat’s rear end. Those are the folks I generally admire.
I wore corduroy pants for like 4 years in middle school. Does that count? It didn’t with the girls.
🤣
Isn’t it time for corduroy to make a comeback?
You echo my sentiments entirely, Michael.
I’m drawn to an image here which, in a way, illustrates (I think) the nature of puppets and puppet masters. I’m sure you’re aware of the trust exercise where a group stand in a circle facing one another’s back then sit en masse resting on the lap of the person behind them. Who, exactly, is in control? Everyone or no-one? And what happens if one person refuses? In a sense they then all refuse as the exercise won’t work and, by default, conform to the refusal.
Great response (anarchy rules). Sadly probably too subtle for most.
As the penguin said in the film Madagascar: smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.
I try to do this: smile and wave 👋🏼
The version of that study I am familiar with was the team building exercise of a circle of linked arms and falling back into the circle.
Thanks Chris. More for me to think about.
Ah, but it’s your ‘half-penny thoughts’ which get me thinking in the first place.
Pronunciation – are you half- penny or hay’p-ney (best way I could think of sounding it out)?
I’m old school and the latter. We used to have a small private airfield about five miles up.the road named ‘Halfpenny Green’ and it said a lot about people when you asked it’s name. Sadly it has now been renamed and given a both pompous and preposterous title.
Just made me think, that’s all!
Glad I could get the mental juices flowing with my little thoughts. 🤣
Ha’ p-ney is how I’d probably say it if I were not in Minnesota. Nobody would understand it here, so it would be half penny around folks local. Each letter sounded out quite precisely. And even then, folks would like as not wonder what I was talking about, seeing half pennies went out of fashion before they were born.
They’d just think I was strange.
Now that’s a relief !🤣🤣
Ah, for the old money in the UK – the shilling, the tanner (sixpence piece) and the threepenny bit (if you not seen one Google it – lovely coin). Childhood days when a penny chew cost just that…happy days…or is that just my skewed memory??
Going to the corner store for candy was one of my favorite pastimes in the seventies. We felt rich when we had a pocketful of change that amounted to about fifty cents.
One of my favorites were the candy cigarettes, something that would probably make my mother appalled, had she known.
Not sure you can still get them over here. Probably not very PC! Yes, we felt so rich with a handful of coins. I’m wondering if your coinage smelled like ours?
Which has reminded me of when, back in the late eighties/early nineties, our Mint printed a new, smaller version of the £5 note which (and I’m not exaggerating) actually smelled of shit! Not sure if you ever encountered it when you were over here. Oh, and Scottish notes which always looked more attractive than their English counterparts!
I doubt you can find candy cigs in most places. I mean, I think I saw them on Amazon when I looked them up on a lark, but it has gotten very much associated with being a gateway to real cigarettes around here.
Aside from my “immigration denied” episode around 1990, I didn’t have much time to handle your coins and currency. And when I was in Edinburgh, it was all Bank of Scotland currency. And yes, I agree — theirs felt better designed.
I’ve run into ink that smells like shit, so I know the smell. I worked in a print shop for a while and some of the ink in tins smelled a bit like crap, working in a bookstore, there were books (magazines, more often) that smelled like shit. Not sure what gave it that smell…
Yep. They still make them at least. Bubblegum and sugar sticks.
Sweet taste – probably lead to vaping! I’m convinced all these profit hungry corporations are working hand in hand!🤣
I wouldn’t be surprised if big tobacco subsidizes it.
To be fair my last comment was fairly tongue in cheek. And, of course, most of our ‘leaders’ have interests in such companies and it’s a case of lining their own pockets first.
What good is having power if you can’t benefit from it?
Yep.
🤣
Those strings are tough to recognize. Maybe that’s what wisdom is, seeing the strings for what they are. But it sure does feel like a lifelong challenge.
You’re on to something, I think. You’re right, it is a lifelong challenge.