From the Aether #1
Hello, dear listener! Welcome to the first ever issue of From the Aether! Whether you’ve backed the Patreon or not, we want to thank you in advance for reading this and supporting the show.
When Into the Aether first started, we consciously used the phrase “a low key video game podcast” at the start of every episode as an indication that this wasn’t going to be some kind of screaming-on-Twitch, angry-at-the-news, get-mad-about-polygons show. We wanted it to exist as an island, separate from the larger gaming community, and separate from “gamers” in the most Mountain Dewritos sense of the word.
The online conversations around games in 2019 tend to lean into what’s bad, but we wanted to double down on what’s good. We wanted to make something that challenged the medium every single week, while also celebrating what it can provide — whether that be comfort, introspection, or just dumb fun. As a purely independent podcast, we exist untethered from anything that could get in the way of that goal. And that’s all thanks to you!
We’ve been so thrilled to see the positive response over the past year, and it’s only natural that we would grow along with it. Enter From the Aether, a new endeavor for the both of us, and a way to not only grow the community, but also the voices contributing to the show. Although this first issue is only by the two of us, expect to see new names and bylines popping up in the coming months. We can’t wait for you to see what we’re working on!
So thanks again, and without further ado: From the Aether #1.
With love,
Stephen + Brendon
The Three Houses Close to Home
by Stephen Hilger
A lot has changed for me over the last handful of years. I’ve officially been out of college longer than I was in college. I’m settled into a city fairly far from home. And I wonder sometimes if I’m more settled now than I ever was? Or maybe calling any place home is projection. Perhaps it’s an attempt to stay in one state of mind forever, as time marches forward without notice of our hopes, needs, fears, or dreams.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a game Brendon and I have talked about a lot. A lot. This game comes up so much on our show, and off the show, and in our discord that I’m amazed I have anything left to say about it. When we talk about games every week, I’m often challenged to figure out the deeper meaning behind my preference. Why do I love this game so much? Just like giving positive feedback to a peer, I don’t find it helpful to just state the obvious. What makes a game like this hit me so hard beyond just being well made or having fun mechanics?
Yes I’ve been a Fire Emblem fan for a while, and this game is arguably the best the series has to offer mechanically. And for a series that has always been beloved for its shameless embracement of tropes, archetypes, and tertiary characters committing 100% to whatever one joke or adjective composes their personality (always hungry or thinks they are a super hero), it is baffling how great the writing is this time around. Even characters that may appear as one trait personified will reveal they are a fully fleshed out human being. Everyone has their own story that will play out with or without you.
And I think that’s it. There is so much materially that makes Three Houses good, but the reason I’m writing about it here is because somehow a fantasy RPG has captured the universally surreal, inspiring, and horrifying feeling of growing up.
Every student in Garreg Mach has a lot going on, and they all have their own idea of what their future could and should be. Someone like Ferdinand will boast about his royal heritage as soon as you’re within 5 feet of him, and many of his fellow Black Eagles (a house of students from mostly noble families) know exactly the role they have to play in the world upon graduating. Others like Bernadetta, scarred by her past, wish only to spend their days inside and in their own imaginations — reading, writing, and painting the days away. She may have an idea of the future she wants, but worrying about the present is occupying most of her mind. Some of us are just trying to live one day at a time.
Just like making friends in college, you’ll meet those on a set educational path, those that have changed their major five times, and those that can’t seem to get out of their dorm room. Not everyone has a plan, and the ones that do may be the most shaken when they realize how much of life is out of their control.
There is a five-year time skip roughly halfway through Three Houses, and within it, you’ll get to see what everyone’s future is beginning to look like. Throughout the first half of the game, you may have met characters that you disliked and hoped would be redeemed by time. You’ll find some characters have grown and matured, some have become jaded and resentful. Thankfully, some haven’t changed a bit, and others are tragically the same.
We often build our own versions of who we think people are, and as life progresses, we find ourselves shocked at what has become of certain people. The middle school bully was the first to become a father. Your first crush is now a priest. The girl next- door never moved, and the class clown sadly passed away.
As the world around us changes, we find security in those we choose to keep around, and it is somehow the same in Three Houses. As the world we thought we knew plunges into chaos, we find security in the comfortable rituals of day-to-day life with the folks we love. Eating lunch with a friend. Fishing the afternoon away. Talking about something benign while something more important lingers beneath.
It’s the little moments that make the early era of the game feel so special and that make the latter part of the game feel less scary. Those moments between friends are what we believe in and what we end up fighting for. They’re also just for you.
Growing up, we don’t have much control over the bigger things, but small moments that seemingly don’t matter are what really compose our stories. Your story, that a lucky few get to star in and hold onto, as the rest of the world continues.
The Pokédex is a Warning
by Brendon Bigley
A1.
“You can find plot holes or logic gaps in any movie, and if you want to, go right ahead. Just don’t tell me that those are genuine flaws and problems and reasons that a movie is bad… because they’re not. None of these things actually matter, because they’re not what a movie is about.” — Patrick Willems in his video essay “SHUT UP ABOUT PLOT HOLES”
B1.
The Pokédex entry for Pidgeot in Pokémon Red and Blue is as follows: “When hunting, it skims the surface of water at high speed to pick off unwary prey such as MAGIKARP.” Honestly, this feels like pretty average bird behavior. Sure, a Pidgeot is enormous by our standards, but compared to the likes of Beedrill (a toddler-sized bee with drills for arms) and Charizard (an actual dragon), a big ol’ bird catching fish seems pretty innocuous.
Still, one can’t shake the feeling that if literally any Pokémon species existed in real life, no matter how innocuous, it would have radical and unexpected consequences on the very fabric of society. Pokémon’s very existence would ripple outwards as the catalyst for a world completely unlike our own. There’s more to Pidgeot than we think.
A2.
I’m not the kind of person to tear apart a fictional work because of what I deem to be a “factual incongruity.” Getting mad at a movie for suddenly introducing a new super power for its space wizards only serves as a misguided attempt to point out one’s own perceived superiority over the media itself. Most “plot holes” are not actually plot holes at all. For example, Toy Story 4 brilliantly introduces Forky, a spork that becomes sentient via the introduction of googly eyes and a mouth. Was it the imagination of a child that willed the pains of being self-aware within him? Was he only alive because been physically played with? In Toy Story 2, a group of toys come to life while still trapped within their packaging without the divine intervention of a child, so technically the series breaks its own rules with Forky’s existence.In a YouTube video somewhere, I’m sure this would be listed as a “cinema sin” or something, but nothing about these questions challenges my love of Toy Story 4 as a whole. In fact, they’re generally irrelevant to the media itself. The question of how Forky came to be isn’t even addressed within the context of the film, it’s just something we as adults fixate on in an attempt to grapple with the internal logic of a movie built from the ground up for children. But in truth, bringing up questions about the sentience of toys at every social outing I go to brings me a great amount of joy.
I love to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, and I love to take people with me.
B2.
The Pokédex entry for Pidgeot in Pokémon Yellow is as follows: “This Pokémon flies at Mach 2 speed, seeking prey. Its large talons are feared as wicked weapons.”
Two years after the release of Pokémon Red and Blue, we’re given a slightly more in- depth description of Pidgeot as a species. What was once a large bird snatching unsuspecting Magikarp from the water at “high speeds” has now become an unnatural force, comparable in speed only to research and military aircraft with names like “Mikoyan MiG-31 Foxbat” and “Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.” Imagine the precision of a creature with the ability to fly faster than a speeding bullet, but also the ability to slow down rapidly enough to not disintegrate a fish into a fine mist of scales and guts on impact when attempting to remove it from the water. Even something as tame as walking to school is turned on its head when you consider the constant earth and ear-shattering sounds of sonic booms as Pigeots accelerate overhead, breaking the sound barrier before they’ve even reached their top speed.
And then there’s this: “Its large talons are feared as wicked weapons.” Feared by who? Obviously, and perhaps instinctually, they’d be feared by Magikarp and any other Pokémon unfortunate enough to find itself one link or lower on the food chain, but it’s not like they’d ever read the Pokédex. We then have to assume this entry was written by humans for humans, which means the talons of a Pidgeot are most likely feared by us. At some point in the history of the Pokémon world, Pidgeot have been known to attack human beings.
A terrifying thought: The sound of a sonic boom miles way, the clawing of talons in your back as you’re hoisted into the air seconds later.
And good god — this is just one Pokémon~
A3.
Too frequently I see the deconstruction of media as a purely negative act. It’s like saying a puzzle is bad because one piece can fit two different ways. Just because it doesn’t fit in the way you expected doesn’t mean the puzzle is incomplete when you put the piece where it belongs. There’s a version of this in which you complete the puzzle both ways and appreciate both outcomes.
B3.
Humanity wouldn’t be the dominant species in the world of Pokémon. There’s just no easy way to reconcile this. Pidgeot alone throws off the ecosystem’s delicate balance, but introduce a few more creatures into the mix, and we’re unquestionably doomed. Take Machamp’s Pokédex entry from Pokémon Yellow: “One arm alone can move mountains. Using all four arms, this POKéMON fires off awesome punches.” How is a human being supposed to compete with an aggressive creature hell-bent on proving its superiority with the power to hurl its foes into space? It doesn’t, is the easy answer. The more entries you read, the more you’ll come to realize that the invention of the Pokéball was purely out of necessity for the survival of our species.
Victreebell’s entry from Pokémon Red states that it is: “Said to live in huge colonies deep in jungles, although no one has ever returned from there.” What the fuck does that even mean? Are Victreebells eating people?
To take it a step further, check out Grimer’s entry from Pokémon Fire Red: “Sludge exposed to X rays from the moon transformed into GRIMER. It loves feeding on filthy things.” So in the Pokémon world, we’re now introducing a moon that emits harmful x- rays back down to the planet and turns toxic runoff into beings that roam among us — living reminders of humanity’s excess and waste.
Even something as seemingly wholesome as a Ponyta ends up being horrifying, via it’s Pokédex entry from Pokémon Stadium: “Capable of jumping over the Eiffel Tower in a single giant leap. Its hooves are ten times harder than diamonds.” You read that right! Harder than diamonds! Wait. Hold up…There’s no Eiffel Tower in the Pokémon world… is there?
A4.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s a world in which you can bury yourself in mountains of facts and figures and match inconsistencies with details and still come out the other end loving the thing you’re exploring. In some rare cases, you might find yourself with an even greater appreciation for it. When you come at a piece of fiction with equal parts genuine curiosity and love, the result might be even greater than you expected.
B4.
There are a bunch of references to our world in the Pokédex. Ponyta jumping over the Eiffel Tower is pretty in your face, but what about this one for Gastly from Pokémon Fire Red: “A being that exists as a thin gas. It can topple an Indian elephant by enveloping the prey in two seconds.” These raise some serious questions about who wrote the Pokédex in the first place, and who it was written for.
Let’s dispel the easiest conclusion to jump to: That we, the players, filled it out ourselves while on a journey across various regions, making friends and discovering new incredible sights around every turn. How romantic! But also improbable! When Professor Oak hands the player their Pokédex, how is it that an entry appears upon the mere sight of a creature? Unless we’re to assume that the Pokédex is a hyper-intelligent AI with the ability to learn every trait of a being by analyzing one solitary glimpse, we have to assume that all of these entries have already been written by someone else. Our filling out a Pokédex is merely an act, a ritualistic rite of passage for aspiring trainers to strive towards. If the process of collecting badges wasn’t already an inherent part of the trainer experience, we could say that filling out a Pokédex is a badge of honor, and nothing more.
So the inclusion of monuments and creatures from our world can really only indicate one thing then: Someone from our Earth found themselves in the Pokémon world, and kept detailed notes. They used vocabulary and imagery we’d understand as a way to make clear that we, as in you and I, are not equipped to handle the terrors of a world in which gargantuan birds pierce the sky at speeds faster than the human eye can register, and four-armed humanoids literally reshape the ground beneath themselves with their hands. A world in which ghosts are proven to exist and act as malicious poltergeists, actively seeking to drain the life of their unsuspecting victims. It’s a world in which even the cutest creatures harbor immense destructive power. It’s a world in which gods are real, and walk among us.
The Pokédex exists as a warning, a single extended yelp into the aether in the hopes that others like its scribe do not befall the same fate.
AB.
To take the Pokédex literally is a dichotomous act depending on your intention. If your aim is to tear down the logic of Pokémon as a way to prove it breaks its own rules and therefore could never exist as the vast and gorgeous interconnected world we see in the games, then you’ve chosen to do something extremely fucking lame. To end your breakdown at “there’s no way this world could exist given the established canon” only serves to show your own superiority over a game for children. Cool.On the other hand, if you take it just one single step further, your cold and analytical deconstruction finds a new optimistic direction, and the wonder inherent in the world returns like life after a dark winter.
Just because Pidgeot can soar through the air at Mach 2 and may or may not have hunted humans at one point or another, doesn’t mean the Pokémon world can’t exist. Because it does exist. And we’ve all seen it. We’ve spent years poring over its every last tile, from tall grass-lined roads to immense circuitous cities. We’ve made friends with trainers and Pokémon alike, and spent nights curled under the covers with a flashlight because going to bed meant being separated from an unfathomably incredible place, even if only for a few hours.
The truth is that the Pokédex is a testament to the perseverance of humanity, and a roadmap for a brighter future. With all the odds stacked up against us, not only have we found a way to thrive among beasts, ghosts, and gods, but we actually live in relative harmony with them. The world of Pokémon is a beautiful place that embraces the wonders technology can provide and the belief that all beings can coexist. Somehow throughout the history of this world, humanity became the best possible version of itself, and if diving too deep into the Pokédex is what it takes to realize that, then it’s a rabbit hole I’d be happy to fall into any day of the week.
This first issue has been made free for everyone, but you can get each month’s new issue from our Patreon, or hear more of us every week on the podcast!
Until next time,
Stephen + Brendon