Tag Archives: Abjection

Abandonment Issues and Abject Subjectivities in Borderlands 2, Bioshock 2, and Baldur’s Gate, Too

A little over a year ago, I wrote a review of Baldur’s Gate, in anticipation of its upcoming rerelease. It was a sloppy piece on looking at the relationship between the main character and their father, Bhaal, god of death, … Continue reading →

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Close Playing Baldur’s Gate: Still the Same Old Daddy Issues

While Baldur’s Gate’s game play is still clunky — I can’t count the number of times I yelled at my party: “You can’t walk through walls, goddammit!” — the themes it engages with are still worthy of attention, nearly a decade and a half later. I’m not going to drone on about the game play mechanics and how it revolutionized the arena of PC gaming or how the Dungeons and Dragon RPG style is or is not stale. Instead, I want to get at an issue that is important to me as an adult feminist, and how Baldur’s Gate functions as a beautiful example of this: that is, the identity politics at the forefront of the narrative. Continue reading →

Posted in Close Playing , Criticism | Tagged , , , GOG.com , , Kristeva | 3 Comments