androvsky said:
Flower isn't making a distinction between bad industrialization and good industrialization beyond the tacit approval of wind power. You'll note that what's essentially tagged as 'bad' in the game isn't factories or strip mines, but twisted, rusted metal debris. Other than that, you can hardly blame a flower for wanting to add a little color to things, right?
Flower isn't trying to save cities from their own growth, it's cleaning up the decay, presumably from neglect. I guess you could say Flower is pro-urban renewal, which might be difficult if you're a rampant environmentalist and think anything man-made is evil. Think of it as more Princess Mononoke than Nausicaa.
Which is why I brought up my points. Honestly, the interpretation of it as pro-urban renewal hadn't occurred to me; I saw it as an advocacy for replacing an old, maligned form of industry with another newer and more sustainable one but your point about the towers as debris definitely changes my view on the matter. I want to say that the debris is not literally debris, that it is a placeholder for a more general concept of the 'bad industrialization' I had denoted in my previous post but the fact that wind power is explicitly visualized in the game and does not stand as a representative for all alternative energies (no solar panels for example) denies it.
But the distinction made between what the metal debris and the wind generators is definitely unequivocally so, not a benign and
implied approval of the latter, especially considering that the portrayal of the debris and towers were not of form that implied neglect but rather malice.
I am now more inclined to think it's a mix of both, and seeing your points, it seems we're simply on different sides of the same coin; instead of my 'saving the cities from their own growth' comment, renewal might be the more apposite term.
I'd like to return to your debris comment and ask, in the fifth level, the area with three towers which the player is required to transform to open up the path to the maze, what does this signify? Were the towers inactive and we're simply revitalizing them? It doesn't seem like they're getting replaced and if it is an issue of renewal, then wouldn't it be a renewal of an industry which had created such debris in the first place? The sixth level has the player actually destroying and not transforming those tower/spikes so I'm trying to reconcile the two levels. Obviously it could just be some allegory for the long road to complete renewal, but I'm reluctant to grant it that considering the almost messianic status the player attains right from the start of the last level.
By the way, I find it amusing that you're dismissing Flower's artistic merit simply because you find the implicit message difficult.
I don't think I was dismissing it because I found the message difficult, but rather because of the message.
If Flower is the Meegeren, what game is the Vermeer? I might want to play it.
You caught me responding to someone with a loose analogy for something else. I would also like to play a Vermeer.
