Errant Signal - The Beginner's Guide (Spoilers)

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This episode was made possible by generous support through Patreon!
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[btdja]

A meta-commentary about meta-commentaries about meta-commentaries.

[miguelrothe]

Local man analyzes game about futility of game analysis, has existential crisis.

[philipjohansson]

To see Errant Signal analyzing this, to see him battle with the idea that he is no better than Davey in the game, seeing the flashbacks to his earlier videos as he is condemning the same behavior is eye-opening. This video really lets us see the person behind this channel, his personal insecurities and shortcomings. His realization that all along, he's been assuming things about the people behind the games he's been discussing, and now it's making him disgusted with himself. This video is a truly beautiful view into the mind of one of my favorite YouTube creators.

[Madoc_EU]

I absolutely love what you did there in the end. So great!

[kaefrkind]

As soon as I noticed what kind of ending this video was going for, I had a big smile on my face.

[SabianTheNugget]

Im not sure if that break down at the end was supposed to be a parody of the break down in the game or if he was serious. Oh I think I get the point now.

[bobthedj]

"Villain most in need of a hug"

[AJ-kjgo]

First time I've seen echos of "the death of the author" concept in a video game before

[AlastairDrago]

When I was playing this game, I was playing it from Coda's viewpoint. I was suspicious for some reason, early on, that Davey's viewpoint might be warped or mistaken. So... I tried seeing what Coda was trying to say. Not who he was, or what he felt, but what he was saying about society, about people, about how they end up trapping themselves, given all of the prison elements, and, when I remembered an interview about how the creator originally felt that The Stanley Parable was a game about connecting and isolation, how there was this underlying theme of failure to connect or communicate.

Now that I type this, this is a hilarious and deep irony.

But then... it got to the Tower, and the signs that Davey was overstepping his bounds became... disturbingly blatant to me. He said that he never shared these games, but then Davey goes and does this. Then I realized that he was doing this NOW. And while there was a ton of other warning signs I missed, the Tower was when it became too strong to ignore, especially when I realized that Davey was missing something that was being said by the games, although before the reveal I thought it was a message of how it takes time and patience to understand someone (the numbers puzzle).

And then I saw the message about how Davey should stop adding lamp posts, and I just had to stop. I just... stood there, in that virtual space. I lost all respect for Davey. I could no longer trust him.

But I kept listening. Not to blindly trust what he said, but to read in between the lines of what he said to see what was being shown to me, about what was really being SAID.

...I think, ultimately, we're meant to have the same breakdown Davey did. I think, at the game's end...

...

Well, maybe that was so, maybe not.

For me, Davey became a reflection of myself. About my own desires to 'help' people. About how I couldn't 'stop'. I stopped and questioned whether I sought external validation because I agreed so much and the answer I came up with was 'I might.' About how the disease tells me at the same time to show everyone so I can be validated by the few that matter, and yet to show no one because they'll hate me and see how ugly I am.

I could even see myself getting worried about someone by reading too much into something, not believing them, and then forever violating that trust by trying to give others a reason to validate them.

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I could be wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if, at the game's end, it's meant to be a reflection of ourselves.

[yersiniopestis]

Here is the thing. Art and by extension games are released to the public. We as people (the public) are shaped by our own personal experiences and thought processes and therefore when we look at art in any shape of media, we project said things onto their works. If an art piece is trying to say one thing but we as people interpret it another way than so be it. The wonderful thing about art is that it allows people to think about it and reflect said art unto their own personal lives. For example, if I read a book about an old man and his redemption of his life before he dies, I would immediately think about my Grandfather. He certainly is not the greatest person who ever lived but through a character in a story, I could easily project my grandfather onto the character thus personalizing the story and give a different meaning to myself than the author originally intended. The author themselves may have intended to tell the story of their spouses grandpa, or the old man down the street but through my own personal experiences I have muddled the story into a story about a person that the author did not actually talk about. To say that your opinion is wrong because it reflects yourself and not the authors original intentions is selfish. If you wanted a story that poetically masturbated your own feelings and have it be only interpreted it in that way, than why did you even release the work in the first place? You (Errant Signal) as a critic are a person who has an opinion that is being shared via Youtube. It is perfectly acceptable to do this. Your opinion may be vastly different or even straight up incorrect, but as a critic you are free to share your views and opinions that may or may not involve interpreting the creator and their work. If the creator of a game thinks that people are interpreting them self incorrectly, than they personally should tell you about themselves; and if they think that their work is being interpreted wrong, they should either tell us what they meant to portray or let the audience be wrong in the hopes that a select few get what you were trying to say and be satisfied with that.

[TwentySeventhLetter]

Holy shit, this video is essentially The Beginner's Guide, translated from the video game medium into the video medium. This kind of paradoxical meta-analysis of art is really very interesting for me, because I tend to see things in that relatively nihilistic view that, while it's all well and good to share your opinion about someone's work, there are as many worldviews as there are people to comment on it, and what you're doing doesn't amount to much. Definitely subscribed ;)

[Woot]

i hate being the obvious point-out-the-joke person so i'll keep it vague but: the ending was gold

[Veto]

God fucking damnit. That ending forces the viewer to take the point of the reviewer and "inject their own lampposts" or simplify you based on your work. It's a never ending "fuck you" to whoever is watching. A paradox where no one wins. I enjoy a good thought experiment but not one that ends up with me being an asshole either way.

[Kelerak]

I'm going to insert my own lamppost here and say that Davey is REALLY good at fucking with people's minds in a very meta way that's beyond the typical "showing the game mess up and talking directly to you" (see also: Pony Island). By choosing to put his real name into the game, he's made it paradoxical to really talk about the game.

Also, I want to make "inserting a lamppost" a term for criticism.

[spinningninja]

Now I feel like an idiot for thinking for a second that the narrators breakdown was real. Or am I gathering from your text something you didn't truly intend? Oh god here we go...

[MCCanaryVideos]

As an artist, its the opposite face of the coin friend

trust me I'm left with my own arguments with koda. But why I think this may be one of my favorite narratives ever conceived. It is a game that to play is to look at yourself in some way. And in a lot of ways I feel like koda. Afraid to share my work that people will make assumptions about my person, yet wishing that maybe, someone can see something I've made and see a part of me. But the only way we can ever see anything is through the lense of our own selfish understanding of the world. When I play The Beginner's Guide, regardless of whether Koda is or isn't just Davey, I still see a struggling artist. Someone who wants to create things but also in being someone who creates things makes things that are maybe painful or even sad, but doesn't want to be judged as a person for making that kind of thing.

And whether your ending was serious or an example of what makes this game so good, I think that is the biggest thing anyone can take away from this game. To play beginner's guide is to have to face yourself. To play a game where you either empathize with koda, or with Davey, the two make a fundamental opposite, the rationale, or the emotional. The two are opposites that struggle to understand one another, that struggle to comprehend eachother, and that at the end of the day, may never be able to, because they are such different ideals, and different thought processes.

This video is the kind of discussion I want games to have, and while I understand your sentiment, remember, you still have your own reasons for creating anything.

Because don't you worry. I find myself scaryingly similar to koda with regards to creating anything, even if Davey bastardized his work, even to the point that one level I have done in my own work. This is a game of pure empathy, and I think it's beautiful.

[browsertab]

Once your work is out there, its meaning is no longer yours.

[kibitz]

*Comments so Errant Signal feels validated

[Sitchy]

I think one of the best things about the beginners guide is that in the way it was presented...we believed it was real

[andrew_cunningham]

I think the end of this video made the point far better than the game ever did ;)

But seriously. This game's like 12 steps ahead of you at all times. You can't talk about the meta bits, because the meta bits are already talking about _you_.