Thoughts and Reflections

[Heresiarch Without A Hope]

I wanted to write out my thoughts about Aquaria, particularly in regards to the extended scenes ending. As I write about it, I might come across as being critical of it, but my intention is not to criticize so much as to reflect on why I reacted to the ending the way I did. I finished the game over a week ago, and Naija’s ending with Mia has left me brewing with some thoughts that I’d like to get out for the sake of catharsis, as much as for the sake of dialogue.

I read through both Zixinus and Aristobulus’s threads with regards to their reaction to the ending. I understand that the story is not intended to end happily. I don’t have problems with endings that are unhappy – trying to think up unhappy-ending movies off the top of my head: Requiem for a Dream, Army of Shadows, No Country for Old Men. These are all stories that definitely do not end on a high note, but still conclude in a way that feels complete to me. I’m having a harder time thinking of a game story example, but one that I can recall from recent memory is Zero Punctuation’s 1213 game, which ends on one of the bleakest notes that I can recall from my personal gaming history.

The examples that I’ve used so far aren’t simply unhappy as they are tragic, which is a label that doesn’t fit Aquaria. The unhappy aspect of Aquaria has more to do with its cliffhanger conclusion. In this regard, I think I do cope better with tragic/bleak endings than I do with cliffhanging ones. Yet even on this criterion, I don’t recall being as upset by other stories that concluded on cliffhangers. A case might be made for Empire Strikes Back if there was no intention to release VI, though it’s hard for me to imagine Star Wars ending on V. The only game example I can think of is Dreamfall. In that game however, I think I felt prepared moving towards its conclusion when everything began to go wrong. I don’t even remember Dreamfall upsetting me as much as Aquaria did.

"He walked slowly:  Happiness drained out of him more quickly and completely than out of an unhappy man: an unhappy man is always prepared."
- The Power and the Glory

I think the key thing leading to my reaction to Aquaria’s ending rests on my preparation to it. Throughout the game, given Naija’s personal reflections, I was honestly expecting worse things to befall her, namely that Li would die, leaving Naija alone again. However limited Naija’s interactions with Li were, I liked him, and following his absorption into the Creator, I was prepared for the horrific possibility that the Creator would permanently corrupt Li, forcing Naija to kill him. Going beyond my expectations, she saves Li, slays the tragic figure that is the Creator, restores the Balance, and starts a family. Yes, there is a bit of melancholy on Naija’s part as her adventuring days are over, and there’s the lingering tragedy of the number of races devastated by the whim of a god that never had the chance to possess maturity. But at the end of it, an era of Aquaria of ends, and there’s a chance for a new beginning. Congratulations Naija and Li! Blessings to your family and may you live long, fulfilling lives.





Then Mia shows up.





I had honestly forgotten about the hooded figure by the end of the game, and I didn’t even feel particularly intrigued by it. Hell, the mystery behind the Arnassi civilization was probably more memorable to me than the hooded figure.

But for whatever reason, Mia decides to intrude into her daughter’s life after Naija’s already started to settle with her family. “Hi Naija! I’m Mia. I’m the mom that mind-wiped you so you’d be better at committing deicide. You’ll never guess what! I just came back from stealing the ‘Queen Bitch of the Universe’ title from Kerrigan!”

Mia is ridiculously off key as to what Naija’s personal values are by trying to appeal to the glory of world domination. Now I acknowledge that the game has hinted a bit to Naija’s wariness of being enchanted by power. But unless I am completely misreading her character, I honestly don’t see a significant danger of Naija somehow being tempted by the dark side. The melancholy she seems to express in empathizing with her encounter of other races indicates to me her nurturing character. The fact that Mia had to force paralyze her attests to me that she’s not interested in the power tripping business. Mia might be skilled at coercion and manipulation, but I don’t see mind control as being one of her abilities, otherwise the game would have made more sense with a zombie-Naija narrating to us from the start about the voice in her head that repeatedly tells her to “kill the Creator”.

Setting aside the dream theory, I am disappointed that for a person who essentially ate leviathans and gods for breakfast, Naija succumbs to a hug, although I’ll concede that Mia did an effective surprise ambush, the surprise being just how shitty a person she revealed herself to be in the span of one minute.

I’m forced to move on to hypotheticals now since a sequel is unlikely, but assuming Naija got her consciousness back and had a chance to gather her thoughts and rebuff her mother, I expect her response to be nothing short of:

 “I don’t care for your bigoted views or your petty plans for world domination. Go pitch your megalomaniacal plans to someone else. You gave me life, and I’ll thank you for that, but I owe you nothing else. And if you dare touch my family, I will fucking unmake you.”

although gentle-lady that she is, she’d give a more polished delivery.

A final thought concerning Aquaria is the demiurge concept. Now the Creator is the obvious example for the story, but the way in which he describes Naija being made a flawed creation from his perfect (though rogue) creation, makes me think of Mia as a demiurge of a demiurge. Going by the Gnostic narrative, the Creator is flawed, and anything he creates is also flawed, perhaps even compounded so. When it finally came to combating the Creator, I went into it with absolute contempt for him, and wanted to utterly ruin him. When we come to actually learn about his original nature, I was very impressed by how well the narrative evoked my pathos. Having gone through this once, and imagining the continuation of the story, I don’t see myself developing any sort of sympathy for Mia when we bring her to heel. Although we learn little about her, she showed herself to be more mature and cunning in the one minute, in contrast to the petulant immaturity of the Creator. She’s cognizant of her bitch status, and she has no qualms with it.

I want to see her go down. If not violently, than by humiliating her in her realization of how insipid her plans are. If at any point she’s brought to her knees, she tries to pull some card along the lines of, “You can’t fault me for who I am. My maker was flawed, and in being flawed, so were his creations, and thus, so was I,” we only need to point to Naija, her own creation, became a better person than she was. Maybe Mia can be reformed too, but that would be calm, lofty thinking. Right now, I just want to throttle her for fucking up the ending.

Alright I’m done.


What a fantastic game.

[Aristobulus]

All of this just makes me even more disappointed that there won't be a sequel. I really can't stand cliff-hanger endings.

Many years later, I'm still bitter at K.A. Applegate for ending Animorphs on a cliffhanger. I think Aquaria ending on a cliffhanger is something I will always hold against it. :/

Anyway, you're right about Mia. The Creator is a lot more sympathetic in a way, because you at least understand he acts as he does because he is basically a child. He's not fully aware of the extent of his actions or the evilness therein, Mia is completely aware of it and totally corrupt, she has no excuse.

[Ledgem]

I had honestly forgotten about the hooded figure by the end of the game, and I didn’t even feel particularly intrigued by it. Hell, the mystery behind the Arnassi civilization was probably more memorable to me than the hooded figure.

Just to counter you, throughout much of the game I was trying to figure out who the hooded figure was, and where he or she would tie into the game.  During the final boss sequences I began to piece it together, but was still wondering when it would be more conclusive.  In that regard, the extended ending was satisfying to me.

But for whatever reason, Mia decides to intrude into her daughter’s life after Naija’s already started to settle with her family. “Hi Naija! I’m Mia. I’m the mom that mind-wiped you so you’d be better at committing deicide. You’ll never guess what! I just came back from stealing the ‘Queen Bitch of the Universe’ title from Kerrigan!”

The reason seemed clear to me - she wanted Naija to experience all of the hardships that she did, and to gain the powers that she did, so that she could help Mia to dominate the surface and other worlds (and what ever else Mia may be plotting).  If none of this had been set up, Naija may not have been motivated to do what she did.  Her experiences shaped her.  It's somewhat philosophical and true to life, in my opinion.

Mia is ridiculously off key as to what Naija’s personal values are by trying to appeal to the glory of world domination. Now I acknowledge that the game has hinted a bit to Naija’s wariness of being enchanted by power. But unless I am completely misreading her character, I honestly don’t see a significant danger of Naija somehow being tempted by the dark side. The melancholy she seems to express in empathizing with her encounter of other races indicates to me her nurturing character. The fact that Mia had to force paralyze her attests to me that she’s not interested in the power tripping business. Mia might be skilled at coercion and manipulation, but I don’t see mind control as being one of her abilities, otherwise the game would have made more sense with a zombie-Naija narrating to us from the start about the voice in her head that repeatedly tells her to “kill the Creator”.

Naija's reaction and response was completely in line with her character.  While I've read a few complaints about it, I also think it was pretty realistic.  The times that Naija reflected on her past and what it might have been were romantic/idealistic.  Clearly she was expecting her mother to be some wonderful person.  The complete 180 from expectations was a shocker.  People shouting "I would have killed her right away" likely aren't considering the emotions that they would realistically feel.  (That, or they have a very terrible relationship with their own parents, or they have an emotional disorder that is hopefully being treated.)

Mia is also shown to be different from Naija.  She was created directly from the Creator, so it's quite believable that she has some god-like powers, herself.  Maybe Naija has them (or is capable of them), maybe not - but hey, it's fiction, right?  Just go with it.

I also found the idea of having memory wiped and all to be somewhat beautiful.  We start off the game with the idea that we're reliving Naija's adventure through her eyes, along with her.  The extended ending seems to take a step back even farther, and it seems as if the save crystals that we used so routinely were actually Naija's way of storing memories, and that Naija's son traces those memories in order to try and understand what happened so that he can find her (presumably that is his goal).  It all seemed to link together so nicely, and I wasn't expecting it.

Having gone through this once, and imagining the continuation of the story, I don’t see myself developing any sort of sympathy for Mia when we bring her to heel.

So quick to judge!   I could certainly envision scenarios where I'd feel sympathy for Mia.

[trojanpooh]

I wasn't a fan of the real ending until Alec made that 3-4 post response to one of the threads here detailing what it meant to him.  I still like the regular ending more, but I can respect the real ending for what it is now and see that it is also a very good ending in itself.  What it comes down to is that I like happy endings and I became very attached to Naija and it legitimately saddened me to watch all of that happening to her.  The more I'm reflecting on this the more I'm realizing just how good the ending really was.  You know what?  Ignore everything I wrote so far, the ending was solid 

[Malidictus]

Naija's reaction and response was completely in line with her character.  While I've read a few complaints about it, I also think it was pretty realistic.  The times that Naija reflected on her past and what it might have been were romantic/idealistic.  Clearly she was expecting her mother to be some wonderful person.  The complete 180 from expectations was a shocker.  People shouting "I would have killed her right away" likely aren't considering the emotions that they would realistically feel.  (That, or they have a very terrible relationship with their own parents, or they have an emotional disorder that is hopefully being treated.)

Or we are not very forgiving of of people who use us, force us to do things against our will, steal our memories and threaten to hurt the ones we love. All Naija knows about her "mother" comes from her own fantasies and imagination. The only love and bond she has is with an illusion. If the illusion had proven to be true when she met her real mother, then great! If, however, the illusion proved to hide a hideous monster in all but shape - which it did - then it would, as a point of fact, be within Naija's character to oppose her, fight her and if necessary hill her. At the end of the story, she is no longer the lost, wide-eyed child just taking in the world around her. She has a son and a lover to protect, and they are the people she has grown to love over time. I would fully expect her devotion to them to be the instinctive first reaction.

As a point of fact, I find instances where love for an idealised lost parent trumps love for real people in the here and now to be disappointing and tasteless, serving only to destroy the apparent mental strength and presence of a character, one who has thus-far spent the majority of the story fighting tooth and nail to gain that mental strength and presence and build herself as a character the hard way. Luckily, Naija's run-in with Mia doesn't seem to go to Naija's expectations and I don't recall anything in that scene to suggest that she was in any way complicit in Mia's plan for Muahahaha. She was paralysed and mind-wiped, and in effect victimised, so one would expect the sequel which would never be to revolve around her son going on a quest to restore his mother to her true self.

Unlike the original poster here, I'm not a fan of sad/downer endings. All it does is serve to take a lot of the weight off a story and essentially rob it of the sort of closure which could otherwise serve to capstone the experience. I have endless words of praise for Aquaria, but "the ending" is the one thing that I will always hold against the game, unless and until that sequel gets made, which it won't.

Mia is also shown to be different from Naija.  She was created directly from the Creator, so it's quite believable that she has some god-like powers, herself.  Maybe Naija has them (or is capable of them), maybe not - but hey, it's fiction, right?  Just go with it.

Everything the Creator made was gods, so there's no reason to believe that Mia is anything BUT another god with great and weird powers, up to and including mind control. Then again, Naija has out-and-out KILLED enough gods to make Kratos green with envy, so it's still disappointing.

So quick to judge!   I could certainly envision scenarios where I'd feel sympathy for Mia.

Were her story in the actual game anything more than fairly standard demonisation to put Soul Reaver's Elder God to shame, I would agree. A theoretical sequel could easily indulge in giving Mia an extensive backstory explaining why she became such a horrible, repugnant person, and perhaps make us feel sorry for her, and see her actions as, if not justifiable, then at least understandable. Having her do something to redeem herself in said sequel would go a long way. As contained within THIS game, however, Mia is the ultimate showstopper and the architect of one of the most disappointing downer endings I've seen, if only because I love the rest of the game SO MUCH. And there's also the fact that I'm not the sort of person to try and excuse the actions of bad people without significant justification, and such just doesn't exist anywhere in the game's narrative.

[FrancesF]

I have to agree with you, Malidictus.  It is one of the most downer endings I've ever encountered.  The real world equivalent would be having the protagonist, whom you have come to love, end up a comatose vegetable in a hospital bed for who knows how many years.  Even if she somehow miraculously recovers, the center of her life is ripped out.  And tearing a mother away from her baby?  It seems way too harsh an ending for the tenor of the story and the rest of the gameplay.  It's not really a classic tragedy, either, with the relief of a tragedy's catharsis to counterbalance the pain, because in no sense is Naija, through her actions or some flaw in her character, the author of her own doom.  And one's sense of outrage, grief, and betrayal is profound exactly because the rest of the game is such a superbly realized experience on all levels.   

That said, you can partially assuage the effects of the ending by creating a mod.  The mod editor is another work of art on Alec and Derek's part, and building new levels with it is extraordinarily satisfying.  Naija is right there with you, testing out every change you make, so at least you can give her (and yourself) another adventure to enjoy.  In fact, if the game had ended happily, before the episode with Mia, I wonder if as many people would have been inspired to work on mods.

[Malidictus]

I want to bring up "the Don Bluth principle," as the Nostalgia Critic calls it, as it is quite relevant to the subject of happy endings, cliffhangers and such. Basically, the principle is that, as long as you have a happy ending crowning your story, you can usually afford to make it VERY dark, and yet still get people to leave satisfied, with the bonus that your story has been far more emotional than it would have been if you'd had to be reserved. The happy ending is both an atonement for depressing plot points, as well as credit to actually introduce these into a story, and Aquaria has a few.

The reason I bring this up is that is to highlight an important question anyone making a story should ALWAYS have an answer for: "Where are you going with this?" When you break a story down into its component parts, you end up with lots of snippets and anecdotes, and you'll notice that very few of those are actually interesting on their own, and many are outright unpleasant. It is the story they form when structured together into a coherent narrative that we want to sit through, and as such every element in this story has to contribute something good, and every element's negative effects need to be counteracted by another. A dark, depressing plot point is unpleasant to sit through, but if at the end of a story I look back on it and think "Man, that was nasty, but it made for a compelling story in the end!" then the unpleasantness has been worth it for its narrative value.

One of my greatest failures as a writer was when I started a story in an incredibly dark manner and kept making it darker with the intention of turning it around and contrasting the darkness with redemption. The net result is my readers balked and refused to read until the good parts, and I had to literally beg and reassure them that I really WAS going somewhere with this, it wasn't just nasty for nasty's sake. You NEVER want your audience to get to this state. Ever. I don't care if this is dark story with a dark ending taking place in a world half empty. If you lose your audience half-way through, you have failed.

Of course, the above paragraph doesn't apply to Aquaria, as that game's sheer amazing quality makes it not just easy to stick to the end, but actually kind of hard to stop I managed to devote over 20 hours to it over the span of 3 days, and that... Can't be good for my health. But it was so worth it!

Back to the subject of endings: If you don't end your story on a positive, conclusive ending, you just take so much away from what may have otherwise been a very solid piece. When a story ends in such a way that I end up questioning what the point of it all was if the heroine was used, abused and... Well, let's not go there. But the point is - why did I just sink 20 hours into a story if none of it amounted to anything I wanted to see? All of the hardship, all of the torment, all of the pain, all of the effort, the emotions, the tribulations, and for what? So that Mia can hit the reset button and essentially yoink the entire game from under me. A sequel featuring the son could have set it all straight, rescued Naija, returned her memories and made all of those experiences and emotions mean something, but such doesn't exist and likely never will. So I return to the central question: Where were you going with this?

Yes, it's true that we can make our own sequels via mods, but there's a very serious problem with that: None of it is canon. And I don't say this to come off like a snob, but when everyone can make up anything he wishes and none of the details are ever set in stone, that just ends up taking so much out of the experience. A fan sequel is to an author sequel what talking about a movie on an Internet forum is to actually watching a sequel to the movie. When Half-Life was still young, I saw a zillion "sequels" to it, none official, none consistent with each other, none as good as the actual Half-Life 2, for example. What the actual author creates carries with it a kind of prestige that fan-made sequels can never have. That, and fans lack the amazing voice actress for Naija, not to mention that an actual sequel would need to involve new mechanics, as the To Be Continued screen suggests. Fan-made sequels are, at best, a "next best thing."

To end, I want to give a specific example of a series that manages to tie up all of its narrative, both the good and the bad and even the "reset button" mechanic, into a an ending so satisfying that I honestly don't want to see it continued past that point: the Prince of Persia trilogy Sands of Time -> Warrior Within -> The Two Thrones. The first game teaches us that one can simply undo his mistakes like none of it mattered, but even then the prince emerges wiser for his experiences and seeks to prevent the future that caused a disaster. The second game teaches us that we can't undo what we have done, and no matter how many times you reset time, something will go wrong, but in the end, the prince settles for the best possible outcome. The third game teaches us that you have to stop trying to fix your mistakes and instead accept the consequences of your actions, both bringing us full circle to the beginning AND finds a way to finally put its defining mechanic - time travel - to rest via character development. All plot threads are closed, all character traits explored, all villains defeated, and the timing and precision of the final few words simply make everything click into place. This is a story which becomes one seamless whole at the end, where every bit of it is necessary, both the good and the bad and even the horrible writing at times. Everything is necessary, everything has a point, everything serves a purpose, and everything works towards bringing a MASSIVE wave of closure right at the end. The actual story isn't all that amazing, but the way it ends makes up for any flaws it may have had, because even those flaws feel like they contributed.

I really, REALLY hate to be critical of Aquaria, especially about its writing. I love this game. It's one of my all-time favourites, and it's probably one of the best things I've paid money for in my life. However, after replaying it yet again, I'm still left with a mix of happiness and disappointment at that alternate ending. I'm sorry.

[achurch]

Last time this issue came up, I ended up really ripping into someone (was that you, Aristobulus? Sorry about that), so let's see if I can handle things a little more calmly this time. (:

The happy ending is both an atonement for depressing plot points, as well as credit to actually introduce these into a story

If you don't end your story on a positive, conclusive ending, you just take so much away from what may have otherwise been a very solid piece.

(and other similar comments)

While I'll accept that a happy ending lets people go away from the game feeling happy (tautology though that may be), I think that by placing as much emphasis as you do on the story of Aquaria, you're actually missing the point of the game. The story is an important aspect of the game, certainly, but it is still only one piece of the entire experience. As you yourself noted, Aquaria has a way of drawing you in and grabbing you tight -- I'd argue that's because the experience as a whole is so compelling. The environment created by the artwork, music, and story is only part of that experience; the rest comes from the player. As the player, you make the decisions on where Naija goes; you decide whether to proceed into the darkness or turn back, whether to risk a dangerous encounter or play it safe. That interactivity, that active participation in the world of Aquaria is, I think, just as significant a part of Aquaria's appeal as the environment itself. (That's also probably why the downer ending didn't leave me feeling empty or disappointed, as frustrating as it was to watch: I still had the experience of playing through the game, of traversing the world of Aquaria, and no unexpected plot twist can take that away.)

There have been a lot of arguments about whether or not video games are art, but to me, Aquaria exemplifies why games can't be considered art: they are active experiences, not passive ones as traditional art forms are. Paintings do not change as you view them, for example; even Nobel-winning literature remains static to all its readers. But no two playthroughs of a game are identical -- each player's decisions, each player's interaction with the game creates a sequence of events unique to that player. It's this aspect which I think Aquaria has managed to capture so well.

[Align]

I never understood why people only like happy endings. For me, it's the sheer amount of emotion in a really sad ending that makes it memorable, and adding some happy note in there just reduces that.

[FrancesF]

I actually prefer bittersweet endings – the first ending was just right.  Think about this second ending for a moment.  You, in the person of your Avatar, Naija, at the age of about 19 or 20, are snatched away from your lover and your child by your abusive mother, who mind wipes you, ties you up, and throws you in a closet for the next 20 years.  I'm sorry, but this ending represents to me a betrayal by Alec of his playership (readership).  Yes, life can bite you in the tail, but this was way over the top.  Nothing in the slow and leisurely build up of the successes and growth of Naija in skills and character during the game prepared one for this ending.  Basically, my outrage is because it's too much like real life, where anything horrible can happen at any time, anywhere, out of the clear blue.  I was going into the game looking for an escape from real life, and instead got sucker punched.  That's not why I play computer games, or read escapist literature; I have enough emotional downers listening to the daily news.  And I do realize that it is my own personality flaw in being unable to keep an emotional distance. 

Not that this is going to keep me from replaying Aquaria – I love the gameplay and artwork too much for that.  But what I'm really sorry about is that this is going to make playing Marian less immersive for me than it could be.  I'll be going into that game warily, trying not to invest myself emotionally in Marian's fate.  Because I don't trust Alec not to pull that trick again.

Switching point of view, looking at Aquaria as a work of art (and I do think games can qualify, see below), Alec and Derek must have wanted to elicit some combination of these responses: shock, grief, outrage, betrayal, by writing that ending.  And it's their perfect right to do so.  (I wish I could maintain the objective art critic point of view.  My husband, daughters, and many friends have no trouble doing this and so are able to appreciate a much greater range of movies, books, etc, than I can.  On the other hand, they don't feel the need or experience the pleasure of escaping into computer games, and look at what they're missing!)  But even considering Aquaria as a work of art, I think the ending would have been more effective if it had organically grown out of the structure of the story, preparing us as it went along, and not been summarily dropped from above at the end.

There have been a lot of arguments about whether or not video games are art, but to me, Aquaria exemplifies why games can't be considered art: they are active experiences, not passive ones as traditional art forms are. Paintings do not change as you view them, for example; even Nobel-winning literature remains static to all its readers.

I have to take issue with this…  A considerable body of contemporary art is interactive; for example Cristo's "The Gates" in Central Park, kinetic art that changes in response to the viewers motions, plays with audience participation, etc.  I also feel that traditional "static" art and literature is not essentially static.  Each time you view or read it you bring a different set of experiences and emotions with you.  Reading "Great Expectations" in high school was a totally different experience than in my 30s, and it might as well have been a completely different book when I reread it in my 50s.  So, I see nothing that bars computer games from rising to the level of art, as indeed, Aquaria does. 

[achurch]

Nothing in the slow and leisurely build up of the successes and growth of Naija in skills and character during the game prepared one for this ending.

I'm curious: What did you think was Mia's purpose in leading Naija on? If she cared for her daughter (as Naija does for her son), would she not have wanted to rejoin her as soon as possible? What purpose would she have for deliberately concealing her identity, for showing Naija the frightening images she did when they first met? I don't ask you to predict the ending -- there would be no point in a predictable "surprise" ending, after all -- but I think that saying "nothing" prepares you for the ending is going too far.

I have to take issue with this…  A considerable body of contemporary art is interactive; for example Cristo's "The Gates" in Central Park, kinetic art that changes in response to the viewers motions, plays with audience participation, etc.

Of course, there's also the viewpoint which says that much so-called "contemporary art" isn't art at all. As you may have surmised, I lean a bit in that direction myself; I'm not familiar with "The Gates" myself, but if anything, I'd consider such interactive exhibits to fall into the same class as games. The main reason I don't like to consider these things as art is that it expands the meaning of the word "art" to a degree that I feel makes the word itself largely meaningless: if anything qualifies as art, then what value can be found in calling something artistic?

I also feel that traditional "static" art and literature is not essentially static.  Each time you view or read it you bring a different set of experiences and emotions with you.

I was expecting someone would bring that up. (: I don't consider that the same thing at all; each reader or viewer may take their own impression from the piece, but the piece itself is static, providing an unchanging base for discussion and critique. Most examples I have seen of such artistic critique do, in fact, deal with those static aspects: a painting whose "stark lines reflect the harsh environment of the artist's upbringing", literature described as "the defining work on what it is like to be a teenager". But you cannot separate the interactive aspects of games from their static aspects and still discuss them seriously; the gameplay is an integral part of the work.

[Malidictus]

While I'll accept that a happy ending lets people go away from the game feeling happy (tautology though that may be), I think that by placing as much emphasis as you do on the story of Aquaria, you're actually missing the point of the game. The story is an important aspect of the game, certainly, but it is still only one piece of the entire experience. As you yourself noted, Aquaria has a way of drawing you in and grabbing you tight -- I'd argue that's because the experience as a whole is so compelling. The environment created by the artwork, music, and story is only part of that experience; the rest comes from the player. As the player, you make the decisions on where Naija goes; you decide whether to proceed into the darkness or turn back, whether to risk a dangerous encounter or play it safe. That interactivity, that active participation in the world of Aquaria is, I think, just as significant a part of Aquaria's appeal as the environment itself. (That's also probably why the downer ending didn't leave me feeling empty or disappointed, as frustrating as it was to watch: I still had the experience of playing through the game, of traversing the world of Aquaria, and no unexpected plot twist can take that away.)

I disagree. We call games an interactive medium, but our interaction is largely controlled by the game developer. While I may control Naija in the very strictest of senses, I don't control Naija in the broader sense of determining her faith or deciding on her character. The game's plot is written for me, and come hell or high water, I have to stick to it, because following the plot is the only way to progress. If my choice is between following a plot point or shutting the game down, then this is not a choice at all. In the meta-game sense, I always have the choice to shut down any game and make up any ending to it at that point that I desire. I have an option to shut down Half-Life 2: Episode 2 at the lift ride down to the chopper before the Advisors arrive and instead claim that things really happened differently and named characters didn't die. But at this point, I may as well abandon the game entirely and write my own story. Which I have, and which I have for this precise reason, a lot of the time. In fact, going back over my writings, I find I have one particular story of self-discovery and personal growth that is eerily similar to the spirit of Aquaria, which I hadn't realised at the time of writing it.

I could console myself with what I've taken away from the experience, and Aquaria certainly has a lot to give. Its atmosphere, its character growth, its introspective, first-person narrative, its placid environment... But what disappoints me is that I want to take bits and pieces of the game, yet not the game as a whole. The linchpin to the entire experience - the resolution which tells me how much of my experience was actually meaningful - is missing. It leaves the experience feeling not just incomplete, but inconsequential, as well. Mia is only interested in Naija's growth as a powerhouse and in her abilities. But power and abilities are not at the centre of the story as I see it. Personal discovery and maturity is, and this is the part of Naija that gets completely brushed aside with the mind-wipe. I can take bits and pieces of the story in much the same way as I can sell a car for parts, but the more I replay Aquaria, the less inclined I am to sit behind the wheel and go for a joyride. I tend to leave at least a year's worth of gap between replays, so I tend to forget most things, but this last playthrough, the ending was always hovering over my head, constantly reminding me that none of what I was doing mattered. Yes, I can take the different ideas and craft them into my own stories, but what I want is to enjoy THIS story, and the ending plain and simple prevents me.

There are only a scant few games which constitute an actual interactive experience. Off the top of my head, I can only name City of Heroes, the super-hero MMO. That game allows you to name your own character, pick your own appearance, write your own story and play that story out, mostly unimpeded by a game which gives you mostly just a setting with storylines in it that you can pick and choose to experience as they relate to the character you are building. This is the kind of game where I can take "the story" and change it, ignore it or take little bits of it from here and there, because I would be telling my own story, not following in the footsteps of a story carved in stone. Aquaria isn't really like that. It's a great game, it's very open-world, it has lots of exploration and its sequence of events is non-linear. But its protagonist, antagonist, supporting characters, beginning and end are set. I like the experience of playing the game, yes, but I wouldn't be playing this game JUST for the experience were there an absence of plot and story. Without those, Aquaria would be Capsized, and this game failed to move me.

I don't want to come off like I'm picking a fight here. I love the game and I love how it's put together, but I really do feel that that ending does a lot to ruin my own, personal experience.

[Malidictus]

Yes, life can bite you in the tail, but this was way over the top.  Nothing in the slow and leisurely build up of the successes and growth of Naija in skills and character during the game prepared one for this ending.  Basically, my outrage is because it's too much like real life, where anything horrible can happen at any time, anywhere, out of the clear blue.  I was going into the game looking for an escape from real life, and instead got sucker punched.  That's not why I play computer games, or read escapist literature; I have enough emotional downers listening to the daily news.  And I do realize that it is my own personality flaw in being unable to keep an emotional distance.

And then there's this. There are a couple of TVtropes articles that are relevant to the topic, namely: the crapsack word and the notion that true art is angsty. I don't want to spend much time discussing them, but things I say may be relevant to those.

Like FrancesF, I too reach for games (and books and movies and stories in general) as an escape from a real life that is less than perfect and less than ideal. I reach for games, specifically, because they allow me to have a hand in helping a character I care about through tough times and bringing said character to an ending which justifies the trials and tribulations along the way. I do this as a way to experience the happy happy joy joy feeling that the world actually is a fair and honest place, that if you're a really nice person and really try hard enough, then good things will happen to you. I have no need and no interest in stories that show me that, no, this isn't true. The world is a terrible place where bad guys win and get away with their crimes scot free while good guys try as hard as they can but in the end meet a brutal, violent end anyway that just serves to remind me that "nice guys finish last." I have had the dubious honour of seeing some of the Internet's more disturbing fetishes, including the messed-up depressing stuff some people seem to really enjoy, and I've honestly had enough darkness and unhappiness to last me a lifetime.

There's a notion about art that dictates true art is only true when it affects us somehow, and then there's the notion that the only way for a person to be really affected is for that person to be taken out of his comfort zone in such a strong way for his personality to be affected. That same notion sees "feel good" stories as inert objects with no real value, because they don't really do anything to change people, but just serve to give them even more justification to never change. I imagine that might have been true of "art" when it was seen as something out of reach for the common folk, something you had to be an artist not just to produce but also to appreciate. I consider these times past, myself, as these days I tend to pay for my art choose what to pay for. As such, I choose what I consider art, regardless of what the general consensus is. And in general, I don't appreciate artwork that attempts to change me as a person, as such artwork assumes to know the world better than I do, and that's not a safe assumption to make on the part of any artist, arrogance being what it is.

A few years ago, a friend of mine insisted that we go see that "Fast Food Nation" movie about the evils of the fast food industry as told through a McDonald's stand-in straw man corporation. She was thrilled with the movie because of how it beat me over the head with "the ugly truth" and how it was "sticking it to the man." I felt the movie insulted my intelligence by presenting me with a one-sided argument constructed from malicious arguments and abandoned any pretence of a good story for the sake of clear and biassed propaganda. Much of history's recognise artwork is like that. Even when it's not commissioned by kings to forward whatever message they were after, it's drawn up by artists who had something to tell me, whether I was interested in hearing or not. This tends to have the unfortunate downside of making the hidden message depressing and unpleasant more often than not, for the simple fact that people rarely feel the need to go out of their way to encode a GOOD message. Most of us don't really feel contemplative when we are happy, we only start to question the world when we're upset.

Personally, I find the greatest enjoyment in positive art and positive storytelling in particular. I most enjoy those stories that take their time to make me feel good not just about myself, but about their own narrative. Yes, sometimes a story needs to use unpleasant elements to achieve this, but the best kind of story I like would use all of its elements to build up for one large, final resolution that puts everything in place, that provides final catharsis, that puts an end to the drama and reassures me that everything up to this point was worth it and everything had a point. I see storytelling like a puzzle - each piece may not be very powerful individually, but when it all clicks in top place right there at the very end, that is when the real beauty shines through. Aquaria, unfortunately, really doesn't have that, because the happy ending gets reversed by the "real" ending, leaving me questioning what would have been different if I had never fired the game up at all. Sure, the world of Aquaria would be under the thumb of a different monster, but it would still be under the thumb of A monster. Sure, Naija would not have had all those wonderful memories and character growth, but she doesn't have those by the end anyway. Sure, the son wouldn't exist, but he's not part of the story anyway, not without a sequel.

The story is simultaneously depressing and unfinished, and I'm honestly starting to have a really hard time justifying reliving it, even as much as I like the story minus one element.

[achurch]

I disagree. We call games an interactive medium, but our interaction is largely controlled by the game developer. While I may control Naija in the very strictest of senses, I don't control Naija in the broader sense of determining her faith or deciding on her character. The game's plot is written for me, and come hell or high water, I have to stick to it, because following the plot is the only way to progress.

I'm afraid you're begging the question here. I disagree with the hypothesis that Aquaria is a literary work; it may have literary elements, but so do many other things which are also not books. You make a valid argument about those literary elements in particular (though I disagree with your position, as I've said above), but it's not valid to claim that argument covers the entirety of Aquaria on the basis that it has a prewritten plot.

Setting that aside, your argument also fails because the plot is not, in fact, prewritten as you suggest. Certain parts of it are, but the remainder is left up to the player. A reader of The Hobbit, for example, does not have the option of making Bilbo go willingly with Gandalf when they first meet, or of having him immediately leave Gollum's lake once he discovers the ring. The entire novel is set in stone, down to the smallest detail. But in Aquaria, you are free to have Naija traverse many of the areas in any order you want (witness the sequence breakers who make their way all the way to the Sunken City without Sun Form); you can let Naija explore cautiously or dash around recklessly; you can have her leave the sea life alone or destroy everything in sight. Many, many details of the story are left to the player's own choice.

If you're suggesting that those intermediate details don't matter because the game always ends the same way, I'd argue that's tantamount to saying people's lives don't matter because everybody dies eventually. Now that's depressing. (:

I don't want to come off like I'm picking a fight here. I love the game and I love how it's put together, but I really do feel that that ending does a lot to ruin my own, personal experience.

It is, of course, an axiom of writing (at least) that the reader is always right. If you ended the game feeling empty or betrayed, then it's no one's place to dispute you, whatever Alec and Derek's intentions may have been. For my part, though, I'd hope you could see beyond the details of the plot to the greater experience as a whole that I believe Aquaria provides.

One thing I would like to suggest considering: You say that the secret ending bothers you because Mia has taken away everything Naija accomplished. But what, then, of Lucien? As we see in the same ending -- and as is also made clear by the final voiceover in the regular ending -- the framework for the entire story is that Lucien is reliving Naija's memories. In other words, Naija has succeeded in reconnecting with her son and passing on the story, despite Mia's attempt to seal her away. While it certainly does not qualify a classic fairytale ending (and I imagine we could spend an entire thread debating the merits and demerits of fairytale endings), I also think that viewing it as a purely negative ending is a somewhat selective analysis.

[False.Genesis]

One thing I would like to suggest considering: You say that the secret ending bothers you because Mia has taken away everything Naija accomplished. But what, then, of Lucien? As we see in the same ending -- and as is also made clear by the final voiceover in the regular ending -- the framework for the entire story is that Lucien is reliving Naija's memories. In other words, Naija has succeeded in reconnecting with her son and passing on the story, despite Mia's attempt to seal her away.

Not sure if you have stumbled upon this post, it provides a bit of insight from Alec's side.
So, your guess was likely correct, achurch
For me, the story and its end are fine like they are; although i am still hoping to see a sequel one day, be it official, a mod, or something fan-made.
So many thoughts and comments about the oh so evil ending tells me one thing, personally -- its a good ending, although it is evil. Hard to explain.
And yes, its depressing. Oh well. It inspires creativity and speculation, though (just ask yourself and think for a moment).