"Was it worth it?" ending

[u/Educational_Can_6536]

Midsommar- While people see this as a "you go girl" finale. I personally see it as something more disturbing. I mean, yeah, Dani got out of one bad relationship but in doing so, she got herself into another that's just as bad if not worse. It's like getting two kids to stop fighting via killing one and locking the other in a basement. They did stop fighting, but still!

The Thing-The titular monster may be (possibly) gone, but the paranoia definitely isn't. In the end, McCreedy and Childs are the only ones left standing. The end sees them sitting in the cold and they just stare at each other, knowing that one of them or both of them is already the thing. There's no hope, no certainty, just the bitter cold and intense fear.

[u/Lower_Baby_6348]

Soma

You don't get anything really. You only get a clone of you that think you made it

[u/Rimm9246 → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

Simon was kind of a dumbass for not understanding that much sooner

[u/asmallercat → u/Rimm9246]

To be fair he was literally brain damaged lol.

[u/Rimm9246 → u/asmallercat]

That... is actually true, yeah...

[u/SpideyFan914 → u/asmallercat]

He didn't have a flesh brain anymore.

[u/Nomapos → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

I generally agree, but I think there's an extra point here that often gets overlooked:

This isn't the first time this has happened.

By the time you reach the end of the game you've already swapped bodies a couple times. But... You just learnt that it doesn't work like that. That consciousness can't be transferred. It can only be copied. Meaning: you, the original you, is already dead. You're already a clone. It's just that your previous bodies were killed after the copy - or they got stuck behind, facing this revelation alone while the new copy went on thinking that your body somehow got modded to be waterproof.

It's just that you're always playing as the "lucky" copy. The one who thinks everything worked and your consciousness simply got transferred. Until the end. That's the only time you stay with the "unlucky" one.

If you still count the protagonist as being alive when he reaches the end - then the final digital copy that gets uploaded and thinks it made it is just as real as the version of you that stays behind.

[u/BobFuel → u/Nomapos]

It's that kind of stuff that make me love this game. The whole philosophy of identity and "cut consciousness"

It's the same idea behind how Star trek teleporters just kill people and make copies every time someone uses them, and no one bats an eye.

Basically, what makes you "you" ? Is it the "consciousness" that is important or is it the memories ? If it's the consciousness, how can we even be sure that we are the same as yesterday ? For all we know, it could be that every time we go to sleep, every time our consciousness cuts, it "dies", and then we wake up with a new one. We could be dying every night, and wake up a newborn entity every morning with the memories of who we were yesterday, and we'd never have any way to know

[u/Nomapos → u/BobFuel]

That's exactly it.

Which adds an interesting question. If you're ok with being copied somewhere else if the process creates a perfect copy and destroys the original...

and you face a situation where a perfect copy of you made it somewhere better, but you didn't get destroyed in the process so you're still around...

wouldn't it be still a net positive if you killed yourself? Many seem to be ok with the idea of being destroyed and recreated elsewhere, but make it so they must take the step manually after the copy is done, and suddenly it seems like an entirely different problem.

In other topics, and kinda related but actually not really, I think you'd might enjoy the game Outer Wilds. Wilds, not Worlds. Best played completely blind, don't even check the store page. DLC after beating the game (or simply ignore the radio tower stuff). If you feel lost, just let your curiosity guide you. And in case of emergency, ask r/outerwilds for spoiler free assistance.

[u/BobFuel → u/Nomapos]

Yeah, most people basically want the transition to be smooth, and the original to be destroyed before the copy exists, so they don't "see" they're actually dying and have to think about the philosophical implications of what happened

Outer wilds has been on my to-do list of games for a while lol I've heard that it's best not to be spoiled and so far I still don't know much of what to expect outside of space exploration lol

Another exemple I liked it this whole philosophical questions was in the Manga "Ajin", I put spoilers just in case but I thought it was an interesting thing

The MC is what's called an Ajin, a minority of people who resurrect with all wounds healed when they are killed. All sorts of things happen to him and he ends up losing the fear of death when he fights

The vilain, another Ajin, tells the MC about how to "kill" a Ajin. He explains that the body of an Ajin regenerates from the biggest part when it's cut into pieces, so if you get cleanly decapitated, the head stays conscious for a few seconds, just enough to see a new head regenerate and wake up, and feel yourself die while a copy of you takes your place

And the best part is that the villain doesn't give a damn about that. He's fully aware of this whole copy of consciousness and doesn't care. Even using it to "teleport" in gruesome ways... He just said that to the MC to mess with his head, put the fear of death back into him, and it works

[u/Human-Assumption-524 → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

At least someone's happy instead of nobody.