The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [24]
If Gamer Gary claims that playing games for so many hours in a day is addictive and wants to tell you why it is so, and he has a joystick in his hand when he is telling you this, you cannot conclude automatically that what he has to say is worthless or false. You could accuse Gary of being a hypocrite, but you cannot conclude that what he is saying is worthless or false without first hearing his argument!
The slippery slope is another fallacy often utilized regularly by people in their bad thinking. This fallacy happens when one inappropriately concludes that a chain of events, ideas, or beliefs will follow from some initial event, idea, or belief and, thus, we should reject the initial event, idea, or belief. It is as if there is an unavoidable “slippery” slope that you’re on, and there is no way to avoid sliding down it. Consider this all-too-real-sounding made-up slippery slope: “If we allow games like Doom, Grand Theft Auto, or Hitman to be mass produced, then they’ll corrupt my kid, then they’ll corrupt your kid, then they’ll corrupt all of our kids, then games like these will crop up all over the world, then more and more kids will be corrupted, then all of the gaming world will be corrupted, then the corrupt gaming producers will corrupt other areas of our life, etc., etc., etc. So, we must not allow Doom, Grand Theft Auto, or Hitman to be mass produced; otherwise, it will lead to all of these other corruptions!!!” We can see the slippery slope here. It doesn’t follow that corrupt gaming producers will corrupt other areas of our life. All of a sudden we’re at the bottom of the slope! What in Nayru’s name just happened!
End Game
There are many other fallacies (unfortunately), and the reader can find them analyzed in many simple books about logic.2 Occasionally, even the sharpest people forget to check if all of our premises are true, or believe that a conclusion follows from premises when it doesn’t.
As you read the chapters in this book, be mindful of statements, arguments, deductive arguments versus inductive arguments, good versus bad arguments, evidence, and fallacies that are spoken about by the authors. We hope that the authors have avoided fallacies and bad arguments in putting forward their own positions, but watch out! With this Legend logic lesson in mind, you can be the judge of that.
Level 2
Dodongo and Death
4
Link’s Search for Meaning
TONI FELLELA
If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.
—Jean-Paul Sartre, Essays in Existentialism
Time passes, people move. Like a river’s flow, it never ends. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition. Young love will become deep affection. The clear water’s surface reflects growth. Now listen to the Serenade of water to reflect upon yourself.
—Sheik, Ocarina of Time
I have a confession to make. I don’t finish what I start. Specifically, the Zelda games I start. I get right to the end, to the final fight with Ganon, and I just give up—but I don’t like to say give up; I prefer to say stop or pause. It’s less like a taking a breather after strenuous game-playing pause and more like a permanent pause. At that point I’m just not as invested. I know it’s going to be over. The game will end and, yeah, maybe I’ll get a nice Zelda and Link reuniting movie but after that nothing, game over, the rupees stop here.
As I write I have two Zelda games on the brink of completion, Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. What gives the game its thrill for me is not some end-game payload of killing the big bad guy; it’s the super-involved and detailed