Topic: .hack//Sign in depth

[noirlax]

Considering we have an amazing amount of of material on Noir in-depth, Madlax also having considerable in-depth discussion about what its about and some for Avenger, I'm creating a .hack//Sign in-depth thread for those who want to discuss one of the fan's most favourite anime in-depth.

So .hack//Sign, what sort of things is it about? Relationships/Identity certainly come to mind. In .hack//Sign we see Tsukasa being caught between his online identity and IRL identity, the various attitudes of characters with different attitudes on how their online life should mix with their real life, whether The World is something to be taken as a game or something far more important? Should we behave differently online? Can one find love in a world like this? Should we abandon the living world altogether?

We also see why people play online games is so varied, is it for friendship? To win at the cost of others? To compensate for their flaws in life? In the game should we be true to ourselves? Or act with responsibility towards their guild?

I haven't got into the different characters and what their views and answers but feel free to throw any ideas out there.
 

[AlexShadow]

An aspect the .hack franchise has been good at and this is true about just about every installment which deals directly with The World is it shows everyone has a motivation to why the play the game

Crim and Bear play it to relax and enjoy themselves
Subaru uses it as a means to gain something she lost, her legs
Tsukasa also plays to escape his troubling life and more could likely be said about why Tsukasa picked a male avatar given his life and relationship with his father
I can't speak much for BT but I imagine she also plays it for pure enjoyment in her life
Mimiru is a teen so kind of naturally gravitated to games
A-20 plays because her classmates are playing
Sora is the same as Mimiru being young he's drawn to video games more.  Of course his immaturity with his age shows.
BlackRose wants to save her little brother's life
Kite has been put into a difficult position where he has little choice but to play

In R2
Roots it self probably lacked a lot of the exploration of the whole cast compared to SIGN but some of it was made up in GU

Haseo is probably like Tsukasa has a troubling home life, I've assumed his parents were divorced, deceased or otherwise unfit

Atoli is a lonely girl who seeks comfort in her guild and someone she looked to as a mentor.
Ovan has his motivations without spoiling it
Shino well she follows Ovan

then you get to World RX the world set in Quantum and you have our three main characters who are best friends on the outside as well so they all play to have adventures together.  Reminds me of playing games with my own friends and siblings.

[noirlax]

I find Crim is very happy to keep the virtual world and the real world separate while Bear is more open to mixing the two worlds together. For Subaru, it is interesting while she has legs in The World she is a weak player, so as much she is like without legs in The World as well. Tsukasa is trying to escape from a lot of abuse and hides away. But only through the friends in The World doe she open up. I feel BT plays partly for enjoyment and partly to fill a hole in her relationships, she's sort of trying to pick up guys in The World. I agree Mimiru plays for fun and socialising while Sora just plays for fun. Sora really pawns other players for the lulz kind of like when you are the lead character in say GTA.

[Mireille]

I think you can say for Bear it's also a form of escapism. He feels failed as a father in the real world and ends up trying to be one in the online world. You might also say with Tsukasa he is looking for a second chance at being what he should have been the first time around.

My feeling with BT is similar to Riki's opinion, but I think meeting someone she can eventually connect with in the real world is her primary reason for playing. She like Subaru seems to be underdeveloped in terms of level, but has a high and mature character appearance. I think that shows her focus in game.

[noirlax]

I agree that Bear does have a void of fatherhood he tries to fill in The World. In my opinion BT is a lot stronger than Subaru in terms of level and power. The reason BT appears weak is because Sora is so strong. But I think against a more normal player she will hold her own. I agree that her maturity like Subaru's is what gives her more strength than her level suggests. But I think her maturity manifests itself in how she plays characters off for info on things and how she assesses people's motivations rather than the empathetic, diplomatic but firm mentality of Subaru.

[Mireille]

BT to me fits a subset of female players in MMO's who is more focused on meeting guys than being a serious player within the game. I agree she isn't level one, but she's is well below Crim or Bear. By contrast Mimiru is in my mind a somewhat serious player who plays more for the enjoyment of the game, and makes friends in the game as she does in real life.

I think they go out of their way to show that BT lacks a functional social life outside of the game. That is after all the one look we get into her real world persona. She can't face her class reunion, and that gets her back into playing after she quits.

[kavi]

I'm not sure BT quite fits the profile you're aiming at, Wolf, though I agree that they exist

For one thing, her lack of a social life, for me, suggests the opposite of a player screaming for attention. Her melancholy and proclivity to drink suggest to me that she really is using the game as another form of pure escapism rather than as a dating accessory. The class reunion comment is particularly telling, as these are the occasions when people like to brag about their accomplishments - which is precisely what would motivate an escapist tendency. The fact that she is still a newbie in terms of game advancement could simply be a lack of engagement with the mechanical side of gaming, which can occur with anyone (particularly those who 'play for fun', lol).

Bear, on the other hand, is, I would suggest, far from escapist. He seems to comment very frankly on his failings and actually uses the game as a chance to face and (at least partly) conquer them, rather than run away. His relationship to Tsukasa, and indeed, to Subaru, takes particular courage and the game becomes an element of great growth for him. I would say Bear, despite his real life troubles, is one of the more encouraging examples of a 'mature' gamer.

Mimiru and Crim are probably the closest to the mainstream gamer - young, have relatively normal lives, don't take themselves too seriously, and don't like to think too hard.

Subaru is probably the most interesting case, if noirlax has the time/inclination it would be nice if he could develop that analysis somewhat ^^ For me she doesn't quite fit the stereotype of the disabled gamer, who in my experience tend to be highly mechanical and not as social in their approach to gaming. At least in English society, having a disability rarely if ever forces people to seek virtual friendships, but it can spur them to make powerful characters. But perhaps a Japanese or north Asian attitude to disabilities, or to gaming, is a difference-maker here.

[Mireille]

The type of player I am thinking of doesn't scream for attention, but rather uses the online environment more like a singles bar with an eye towards meeting in real life eventually.

[kavi]

The type of player I am thinking of doesn't scream for attention, but rather uses the online environment more like a singles bar with an eye towards meeting in real life eventually.

don't we all do that? XD

[Mireille]

The type of player I am thinking of doesn't scream for attention, but rather uses the online environment more like a singles bar with an eye towards meeting in real life eventually.

don't we all do that? XD

It's been years since I played an MMO, but when I did meeting in real life was never my thing. I just wanted to level my character, and explore the online world.

Saying Bear was escaping probably wasn't quite right on my part, but I think his relationship with his son is a part of why he plays. Certainly he is aware of his failure, and seems to do better by Tsukasa, but that desire to have a second chance is probably a motivation to get involved in Tsukasa's situation in the first place.

[Mireille]

Thinking about this a bit more it occurred to me on some level the Subaru/Tsukasa relationship would seem to embody a sort of gender indifference. If you think about characters in the world being a human mind or consciousness inside of a sort of virtual shell that could be completely different from the body that same mind inhabits in the real world it's an interesting statement about the importance of body vs. soul so to speak. (Sorry that idea is poorly worded. I'm typing this on my phone.)

We see it in other characters to like Sora as a child mind inside inside an adult body, or Subaru being able to walk in 'The World' when she can't in real life.

Sora is to me an interesting allegory for online bullies who are frequently adults suffering from a severe form of emotional retardation and thus possess the emotional development of a child under the age of five.

[kavi]

It's been years since I played an MMO, but when I did meeting in real life was never my thing. I just wanted to level my character, and explore the online world.

Fair, I was partly teasing. But I do think there comes a point with most mmo players where the social aspect becomes more important than the game itself. I still play with many of the same people as when I first started taking WoW seriously, but the games we play have changed.

Saying Bear was escaping probably wasn't quite right on my part, but I think his relationship with his son is a part of why he plays. Certainly he is aware of his failure, and seems to do better by Tsukasa, but that desire to have a second chance is probably a motivation to get involved in Tsukasa's situation in the first place.

Yeah, that sounds right.

Sora is to me an interesting allegory for online bullies who are frequently adults suffering from a severe form of emotional retardation and thus possess the emotional development of a child under the age of five.

Lol! Yeah, possibly.

Thinking about this a bit more it occurred to me on some level the Subaru/Tsukasa relationship would seem to embody a sort of gender indifference. If you think about characters in the world being a human mind or consciousness inside of a sort of virtual shell that could be completely different from the body that same mind inhabits in the real world it's an interesting statement about the importance of body vs. soul so to speak.

Hmm, though I'm not sure that's quite the metaphysic .hack//SIGN is expressing. I think the message is rather that the World is very revealing of the soul (compared to the real world where it is grainy, black-and-white, obscure). The manner in which the players *choose* to reveal themselves gives them a "colour" which they would not otherwise have. It is this "colour" of the rational soul expressing itself creatively that Morganna resents - as a program, she is not capable of creating of her own accord, and she is forever beholden to Hoerwick, Aura, and the players for sustaining the World she is supposed to embody. Her relationship with Tsukasa is, I believe, the ultimate manifestation of this jealousy.

[Mireille]

Hmm, though I'm not sure that's quite the metaphysic .hack//SIGN is expressing. I think the message is rather that the World is very revealing of the soul (compared to the real world where it is grainy, black-and-white, obscure). The manner in which the players *choose* to reveal themselves gives them a "colour" which they would not otherwise have. It is this "colour" of the rational soul expressing itself creatively that Morganna resents - as a program, she is not capable of creating of her own accord, and she is forever beholden to Hoerwick, Aura, and the players for sustaining the World she is supposed to embody. Her relationship with Tsukasa is, I believe, the ultimate manifestation of this jealousy.

I think we are essentially on the same page there. Your idea is better thought out. My idea's about .hack are still in their infancy after just two watches. Where I do think there seems to be some gender indifference (and I use that for lack of a better term) is that gender doesn't seem to matter in their relationship. Tsukasa is female in the real world, but seems to reject that on some level, and is male online. Subaru is female in the real world and online, and doesn't reject her gender, but to a degree seeks to escape the limitations imposed on her by a body which is crippled in some way. Her concept of body may not be all that different from Tsukasa's.

I think Bear makes some comments about 'whatever it is between them is good,' and also about their relationship helping each other to heal. This seems to me very similar to the nature of relationships in other Bee Train series where the relationships themselves are somewhat ambiguous and gender is irrelevant, and the characters either heal or grow through their relationships with each other. 

[noirlax]

I think kavi says it very well, I think the lyrics in the "The World" sort of highlight the revealing as well.

[Mireille]

It's been a long time since I played the .hack games, but I would make the observation that they contained some of the elements of the popular (in Japan) Final Fantasy XI MMO. I can't speak to other Japanese MMO's but SE would have been the big one I think. I think this is an interesting piece of lore since it does show that there was an effort to tie The World to existing MMO concepts, but with a more futuristic VR twist to it.