You Must Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth (Part 2)

It really sucks to be alone. Rather, it sucks to be lonely. Why is it then that so many games have the player portrayed as "the lone hero". You know, in life it doesn't make sense to try and tackle this whole thing by yourself. That's why you have relationships with people. You have friends, family, lovers, husbands, wives, and so on. The question that I didn't ask in my last post was: why? To slay dragons of course.

Continuing with Dragon Age: Inquisition, and the unreasonable amount of hours that I have put into that game, I have been playing it a lot. As to be expected, there are dragons in Dragon Age: Inquisition. They are some of the most difficult, and awkward battles that you have to fight in the game. Players can only attack the ankles of all four legs, or the head. Attacking the ankles doesn't seem to do that much, nor does it seem all that cool. However, attacking the head is more epic, yet also puts you in danger of having your upper half bit off by the massive jaws of the dragon. That all being said, it isn't impossible to kill a dragon, it just takes a great amount of doing. With a party that compliments one another that can work together to complete the task of killing a dragon, it makes things a little bit easier.

There are things in the life that we can handle on our own. I want to make that clear. Sometimes people can muddle things up, and might just be extra weight. However, when it comes to the bigger things, you absolutely need other people to help you out. I am struggling with depression, and it is like fighting a dragon. It's difficult, and it's awkward, but I have a support group of people to help me out. It's difficult because any progress that is made doesn't feel like I've taken any steps forward at all, and it's awkward because it's extremely odd to talk about. There's a whole bunch of societal unwritten rules that make it difficult to talk about this sort of thing. As a man, I have a sort of expectation to be the hero. To be the person that can undertake any task by himself. By doing so, I will prove myself to be a man. That's bullshit.

I believe that one becomes a man by humbling himself and actually asking for help. Setting aside one's pride to handle a problem that absolutely needs help. This is the problem with a majority of other games. Halo, for example, has fellow marines that drop in with The Master Chief, but they're all just expendable chaff that gets blown away in the first few minutes of combat like dust in the wind. I don't need to be the hero of my own story. I need to survive and be happy with myself. I can't do that alone. There is something to be said about someone who accomplishes something great on their own, but I'm not that person. I'm no hero, I'm just me. That should be good enough, but I still need help getting through this thing called life.

That's why I love my friends who stand by me. I need them. Even if they don't fully understand why I get in the moods that I do, or understand that depression is a disease that affects my thoughts and feelings. It's a dragon, and it takes a lot of guts to fight a dragon. Those who are crazy enough to stand by you when facing down a dragon, those are the ones whom you can call a true friend.