The Wired Revolution Act I: How Metaphor ReFantazio Shows the Power of Collective Action
/By Nathan Moloney
(Image COURTESY of sega/Atlus)
Metaphor ReFantazio opens with one question, can fantasy affect reality? The truth is messy and not without nuance, but I would argue that it comes to the conclusion that fantasy can inspire us to make a change in the world. Before we get into that however, I want to give a big, massive spoiler warning. This essay is for people who have beaten Metaphor: ReFantazio and want to further engage with the themes of the story and what it has to say, I highly recommend experiencing the game before reading further.
Let’s recap the narrative. You play as The Traveling Boy (Canon name Will, which will be how we refer to him from here), you are on a mission with the fairy Galica to kill Louis. Louis was blamed for trapping the prince of the United Kingdom of Euchronia in a deadly curse and killed its king, and you are part of the group that is harboring the prince and working against Louis. By the time you get a chance to make the attack, the King’s Magic kicks in and calls an election. From there you set out on your quest to get high enough in the race to get close to Louis. You discover the truth behind the curse (it was ordered by this worlds corrupt church), that Will is actually the prince, and then you kill Louis to bring peace to the kingdom before being crowned King.
Image COURTESY of sega/Atlus)
However I want to discuss one key plot point, the book that Will takes around with him at all times. It is a utopian fantasy novel that is clearly being written about our real world, it tells of a world without bigotry and without strife in a way that is appealing to a young man facing racial discrimination at every turn as an Eldan boy (the lowest tribe in the United Kingdom). By the end of the game Will is faced with a choice, leave the world he knows for the world he reads about or stay to face certain death against Louis.
He chooses to stay and fight for the world he knows instead of escaping into the fiction of his book. I think that is Metaphors answer to the question it asked you some 60-100 hours prior. Fantasy impacts reality through inspiring you to make the change that you want to see in the world, and through sharing the fantasy with others you can make them see the world differently. Throughout the entire game Will shares this novel with those around him, and they change as a result. The book is utopian not because it shows our deeply un-utopian world as that, but because it makes others dream big and want to make their world similar. The fantasy brings people together in a world so divided by their differences and prejudices. We also see this through the character of More, who spends most of the game as your mentor who is locked away in his own realm. At the end it is revealed he is both your father, the now dead king, and the author of the book that Will carries around, and he is the one who offers the choice to leave the world to come to our real world. More does this because he lost hope in the world and its ability to change after his son was cursed, in his eyes his fantasy could not affect reality, and he simply wants to give up on making that difference. However, Will’s views are different because he shared this fantasy with others, and he has those bonds built with different people.
This is the core ideal of Metaphor ReFantazio, that fantasy can inspire you to make the change in the world, that fantasy when shared with others is among the most powerful forces in the world. It is not that the mere act of reading a book makes that change, it is acting on the ideas of that work which makes the change, and that is why I love Metaphor Refantazio. It is a smart story about changing the world and I love all its many facets.
Fantasy can inspire us to change the world, together.
Image COURTESY of sega/Atlus)
