100 Theme Challenge No. 8: Innocence

Today’s 100 theme challenge is number 8, innocence.  Innocence makes me think of many things, like not guilty.  Like being in court, and you are accused of doing something, but you’re innocent, for crying out loud, innocent!  I also think of, well, let me explain.

            You see, my favorite video games are those that don’t have any swearing or other such naughty things.  The innocent games.  This can apply to books and movies, too, for you non-gamers out there.  Just replace “games” with whichever word you like, and it all means the same thing.  The innocent stories.  That doesn’t mean nothing bad happens.  In fact, my favorite stories are the ones that are dark and deep and emotional.  They are not necessarily sickly sweet and childish, with a shallow, meaningless plot.  Nothing about innocence means a story, whether it be in a game or movie or book, has to be boring.  There is just no one saying “friggin’ this” and “friggin’ that” (or the worse version) or scenes of people doing, well, certain things people do, which is already disturbing enough without the fact that it doesn’t further the plot whatsoever.  (And you can play classical music all you want during such scenes and do fancy camera angles, it doesn’t make it better.)

            And hey, some people like the movies or games or whatever that are more nitty gritty and more realistic.  That’s part of why I think M-rated games are so popular.  Not everyone wants to play cute things like “Kirby” and “Mario” all the time.  But, for me, I just can’t get into those kinds of stories as much as the innocent ones.  Yeah, it may be less realistic, when you have some evil psycho saying “gosh” when they really should be swearing like the people in “The Sopranos”, but I get attached to those innocent stories, the innocent games in particular.  Video games are a nice way to escape from reality (any story is, really), so it can be a pleasant experience to play a game that has an innocence not found in the real world.  Sometimes it is nice to have not only heroes, but villains, that aren’t quite as scummy as the people in the real world.  The world can be an ugly place, and that is something I want to escape from.  (Otherwise, I’ll just watch the news or visit my local high school.)

            It is amazing, too, how innocent things often are so popular.  When TV shows like “The Sopranos” and movies like “Saw” are seen by so many people, you wonder if all people want to see is the nastier side of human nature.  But, what about immensely popular video games like “Kingdom Hearts”?  Not a swear word or naughty innuendo anywhere.  No blood.  No nudity.  Innocent.  This series even stars Disney characters as a major part of its cast.  This would seem like it would make the series childish and not appeal so much to adults, but it has a deep, complex, and emotional story that people of all ages love.  (It’s also the number one game in Fanfiction.net, if that tells you anything.  In your face, all other games!)  Or let’s even take something more familiar to everyone.  “Star Wars”.  There is violence (oh, poor Anakin in episode 3, even if he deserved it), but is there swearing?  Is there, well, dirtiness (I have a lame way of saying it, but you know what I mean)?  Is there usually even blood?  Heck, lightsabers cauterize wounds!  Woops, my arm just got lopped off, but no squirting blood to be seen.  Keeps the rugs from staining, too.  Despite this lack of cussing and blood-spraying, “Star Wars” still was and is a popular franchise.  (This happens to be the number one movie on Fanfiction.net, too.)

            So in the end, it is nice to see that sometimes, even the innocent things get attention.  I understand wanting to see more “realistic” characters from time to time.  I do enjoy “Jak and Daxter” (that’s about as bad as the Duck gets, which tells you a little something about my game collection), where the characters are not nearly so innocent as those from “Kingdom Hearts”.  Sometimes I’m in the mood for that kind of thing.  But, I love the games I can play and the movies I can watch where I don’t have to worry about seeing the things that are too common in the real world.  (And seriously, half the population would appreciate it if we stopped being forced to see naked women constantly.  I think the female form looks quite nice clothed.)  And I think that is why such things as “Kingdom Hearts” and “Star Wars” are so popular.  They have great stories and characters and action and all kinds of things we like, but they are also more innocent than most things, which lets us escape from reality rather than mimicking it.  Would “Kingdom Hearts” be popular like it is now if Sora started spouting profanities (imagine that, no, Sora’s such a sweetie, he wouldn’t even if he could)?  If the favorite swear word of middle-schoolers (my goodness, they wouldn’t stop with that word, the one that rhymes with my name…) showed up throughout the “Star Wars” trilogies, would it have been the same?  Maybe I’m just being naïve.  Maybe it would have made no affect or even helped the series.  I just don’t personally think the addition of these things would have.  It wouldn’t have appealed to such a wide audience, at the very least.  But, either way, who cares?  I love the innocent stories, and I always will.

Am I An Innocent Duck?