Month: February 2018

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Unfortunately, this will be my last blog post for Critical Thinking and Writing so I would like to make a recap of everything. From the beginning, I was iffy about the class, especially because of the topic. It was a very uncommon topic for CTW, only having one other class. Also, I was not sure what was meant by heroes. I  thought it would mean something like superheroes, which is/can be included. Although I forgot about policemen and firefighters as heroes, I did not think that a formulaic process would exist for heroes in literature. I thought the most interesting was judging whether or not Pierce from the sitcom Community was a hero or not in the episode “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.” He fit all the qualifications to be a hero and yet, in my opinion, I still don’t think so. I defined the Hero Cycle as a minimum requirement so to speak. Another property that I think should be included is intention; since Pierce did not intend to make Neil feel better, he does not deserve to be a hero.

As for this quarter, I was unsure how feminism relates to heroes or quest. The topic is so controversial nowadays that it somewhat surprised me that it was included. This quarter had changed my perspective on feminism entirely. Before this quarter, although I did already agree with feminist beliefs, I would never call myself a “feminist.” Now that we’re almost done with the class, feminism has a much different meaning to me. Seeing how so many different things, like movies, TV shows, and games, have feminist beliefs within it has changed my perspective of the creativity of the creation as well as feminism in general. The fact that those movies and TV shows would have feminism indicates that it is not a joking matter. I wish that there was a third class because I want to see how else the topic of Heroes and Quest can be applied to other things but, alas, my CTW courses and my freshmen year is slowly coming to an end. I bid these blogs and two-quarter classes adieu.

While doing research for my bibliography entries, I realized how the episode “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” from the sitcom Community directly relates to what I am researching about: games helping those facing depression. Neil had to deal with the depression from everyone calling him “Fat Neil” due to Jeff and was even on the verge of killing himself. To prevent this, Jeff and the other main Community cast members decide to play a game, Dungeons & Dragons. In theory, Dungeons and Dragons could have been replaced with anything that Fat Neil enjoyed doing. The fact that a game was chosen proves that there is some merit in claiming that there are mental benefits to playing games. What Fat Neil experienced and what most people with depression experiences is the lack of meaning to continue living. They think that the things they enjoy are too insignificant or not enough to warrant the continued suffering that they experience in their lives. That is why games like Dungeons and Dragons can be very helpful to those people. Games can provide the players a sense of accomplishment, support, and community. They can make people either once again feel like they have meaning in life or provides them a form of entertainment they deem as “willing to die for” (pun intended). 

Although this is where an “addiction” could arise, it is not a guarantee and a choice by the player. Returning back to the game may be inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be an hourly or even daily task. It can be like what Fat Neil wanted: a weekly or bi-weekly event. Regardless, if it convinces the depressed child to continue living, better alive and addicted than dead.

Since my research paper will be about how video games can help people suffering from depression, I wanted to talk about the other side for this blog. While searching for secondary sources in Omnifile, a lot of articles about how video games are bad for those with depression. Although the typical view of video games is an addictive waste of time and/or a trashcan for the money your parents worked for, most of those articles would be about how video games would create psychopaths and murderers, and I want to refute it. The video games that they mentioned would cause such a thing are anything that involves killing but more specifically, First Person Shooters. The violence and adrenaline rush from killing other players with various guns while trying to stay alive yourself apparently influences depressed children to bring such chaos to their real lives.

However, I do not see how a video game can cause someone to become a shooter or anything like that. Even if it did influence them to kill those he or she hates, it does not explain how the weapon will be obtained or how they will execute that plan. Some may argue that the game can help plan when and where to attack due to similar strategies, but a quick Google search would be not much different if not better. They are just another form of entertainment, just like violent movies but those don’t get any blame. I do agree that they can get addictive and, therefore, time-consuming, but to make such accusations that they create murderers is absurd and an excuse to reject video games.