How Souls Games Save You

this is a devil a tasmanian devil to be specific and i know what you're thinking does it sound like this no it actually sounds like this it's cute maybe if you look at it at the right angle but it's also very barbarian it feeds on small animals like birds snakes wallabies hell even kangaroos if it's an especially ballsy little crew of devils but i think we can all agree that these animals are not what you would call graceful no no the the steady hand of a surgeon is what you'd call graceful a a beautiful woman

in fiction who can stitch your wounds with the power of her magical hair or a colorful phoenix that rises from the ashes is graceful maybe a heart-wrenching tear at the climax of a movie that saves the day and restores order is graceful a confident young josuke cleverly repairing a wound just as quickly as he inflicts it is graceful elegant even healers in games are stereotypically kind affectionate and soft-spoken with a few rare exceptions those and stories that serve the purpose of mending that which is broken are full of that which they give grace graceful both

in mannerism and in practice when i think of these things i don't think of the tasmanian devil tearing into the corpse of a baby kangaroo and yet ecologists think that devils can heal forests not with their glowing blonde locks in a song no with their barbarianism you see to wildly oversimplify it there is an imbalance in mainland australia feral cats and foxes run rampant through a lot of the forest area and heavily hunt small mammals like bandicoots batongs and potteroos the problem here is these little mana dorks are extremely important for the vegetation when they

forage for food they spread seeds fungi and other organic material into the soil which means more vegetation cooler forest floors and smaller brush fires if these populations run low well it's unprecedented if you have a few devils roll into town suddenly the cats and foxes back off quite a bit having to deal with only devils hunting them means that these small mammals can rebuild vegetation and thrive without over or under populating the area the devils in theory can indirectly heal the land this is an example of something called a trophic cascade and is exactly the

same process illustrated in this video you've probably seen before where introducing wolves in the yellowstone national park dynamically changed the flow of the rivers it's a fascinating process and it goes to show that appearances aren't everything you may not think of a predator as restorative just like you may not think of a vacation to a grim unforgiving dejecting world where your flaws are repeatedly exposed and you are punished for your mistakes over and over and over again as something that can save you and yes dark souls came into my life just at the right time

and i would argue minimize the very prevalent risk of relapse that comes from a traumatic experience such as suicide dark souls on the other hand makes me feel as though i can accomplish anything with enough effort actively trying to get better and have a positive outlook on life was a real struggle for me and i still struggle with it every day but the important thing to remember is that you are working on it now that dark cloud i mentioned earlier i pretended that it was some crazy bloodborne boss and whenever i found myself falling into

a dark place i would picture myself fighting it it sounds silly but it's true and it worked in a time where i was super depressed and i didn't have any direction and all my friends that i had were in college and i was barely making any money and as kind of stupid as it sounds it made me feel like i had some sense of purpose [Music] before 2022 i had never beaten a souls game but being a fan of youtubers long before i was ever a youtuber myself i noticed a trend how dark souls helped

me cope with suicidal depression how dark souls 2 saved my life sekiro saved my life dark souls helps my mental health but i don't know why how bloodborne helped with my depression dark souls saved me prior to ever beating one of these games myself i saw a lot of lamenting about souls games controversy over the difficulty whether there should be an easy mode talk of them being masterpieces lots of use of the phrase thank you dark souls but the theme that constantly intrigued me the most was people who reported being genuinely changed for the better

for having played it even going as far as to say that it saved their life or helped lift them out of a depression you know we have the journeys of the world the life is strange series greece before your eyes when i picture games that change people's lives and deliver them to a better place mentally i don't picture this and you may not either but if you find the right thread in the right back alley online you'll uncover a shamelessly wholesome circle jerk of folks singing the praises of a dark souls or a sekhiro and

how it taught them to fight back against their depression usually signing off on their story with the phrase don't you dare go hollow corny as many admit that it appears there is something very real here about overcoming the challenges in a souls game and how it changes people never once has a fromsoft game been listed as a nominee for games for impact of the game awards and yet maybe they should be devils heal forests and it would seem that souls games heal souls but this isn't just magic or some whimsical poetic sentiment that makes these

games affect people in this way it's a cute metaphor to do the whole devil's art of forests as dark souls as the mental health thing but there is science to trophic cascades and there must be science to what these games do to the human psyche and there is quite a bit actually so to dive into that let me ask you a question do you remember the first word you learned how to spell for me it was red there was a little song that they taught us to help us get i think it went something like

this maybe and i'll never forget feeling a cascade of relief because as a four-year-old starting kindergarten being away from your parents for the first time ever and doing something new and foreign like spelling was terrifying but knowing i could spell a word was the first confidence boost i think i ever had maybe you also felt really good about yourself for spelling that word maybe it was something else for you it could have been riding your bike without training wheels for the first time maybe it was finally beating your brother in smash but whatever it was

you suddenly felt relief that you could do what you once feared you couldn't that little boost of confidence we all likely felt as children is something called self-efficacy our own perception that we can perform a task and achieve desired results and to be clear this is very different than self-esteem which is a broader term largely referring to one's perceived worth no this is the feeling when you're getting the hang of something when you've won a few rounds and feel comfortable with your strategy when you're nervous to have a conversation with someone but then talking with

them comes surprisingly natural and when you start to get your first from soft game it's the moment when you start to understand when it's best to roll versus when it's best to simply walk or run to avoid attacks when you realize that you can't button mash when you start comfortably landing parries when you realize that patience is everything several studies like this 2021 article have found that self-efficacy is negatively associated with a lot of things that i'm sure you're familiar with depression anxiety worry even social avoidance in essence if you have a higher overall level

of self-efficacy you'll likely experience a lower amount of these other brutal thoughts and behaviors the reverse is also true lower levels of self-efficacy are actually predictive of depression and the like so as you find yourself getting better in these games it provides a sense of competence and a chance for you to grasp that sensation of feeling sure of yourself once again you start to feel comfortable with red or in this case handling every variety of enemy and environment and in turn in a time in your life when a lot of things other than spelling are

new foreign and terrifying your self-efficacy rises and your darker thoughts may become less prevalent now we need to pump the brakes a bit because you could easily say that a lot of games have those oh i get it now moments right most games provide a challenge and all games have to be beat in some way right and yet you don't see many mario odyssey helped me overcome depression videos despite how brilliant that game was what is it about miyazaki's works specifically that bring people to an unapologetically reflective place to answer that let me ask you

another question close your eyes and take yourself back to school learning to read and then maybe fast forward 14 years or so maybe you're really there now and this will be easy for you but imagine you've just got your exam grade back and you are less than pleased with it do you feel upset that you didn't study enough and that you should have done a better job preparing or that the test just wasn't written well and that no amount of studying would have helped the subject matter was just too much for one exam this class

is just too hard or you just had bad luck obviously it depends on the exam but what we're talking about here are attributions john's as some of you might call them your explanation for your bad performance here do get to go head to head please no john the difference in these two cases is whether your excuse for this is internal and that you personally accepted responsibility or external and that you blame the outcome on the outside world this is something that psychologists refer to as a locus of control do you blame yourself for things that

happen to you or your circumstances was it a lack of skill or a lack of luck that shackled you to this shitty grade now i don't want you to hyper focus on what your answer was i know that the internal locus seems more admirable here but if you had a bad grade due to an error with the answer key or the exam mistakingly had material on it that wasn't covered in class and the instructor is planning to reimburse everyone for those points then suddenly the dude with the internal locus is beating themselves up over nothing

not everything in life is in your control and because of this neither locus is inherently good or bad it's situational i'm sure you can imagine all the ways your locus of control can affect excuses for failure so let me ask you the same question as before but this time let's say you did really really well on this exam it's an a a high a is your locus internal or external now do you give yourself credit for that grade or do you call it luck say we take those or even just assume that the test must

have been easy albert bandura the psychologist who originally proposed self-efficacy in 1997 posits that efficacy is developed from four sources vicarious experience verbal persuasion effective states and mastery experiences that last one being the most prevalent source mastery experiences are exactly what they sound like seeing for yourself that you have mastered something proving to yourself that you can spell red is a mastery experience as is riding your bike with no training wheels or finally beating ornstein and smo they are the most effective source because they provide real tangible evidence that you can do it pep talks

are nice watching someone else do it is nice but doing it yourself is proof that you've got this usually the caveat here is locus of control because you very well could do well on that exam but then discount it as luck or the exam simply not being that tough and studies like this 2016 analysis on self-efficacy for computer software show that this is often the case the only way mastery experience actually helps build our efficacy is if we can confidently attribute what we've done to our own skill and not some other factor like a lack

of task difficulty or luck and i think this is what separates miyazaki's works from the pack most games in my experience are built to be beat they are constructed to keep you engaged in a flow state such that you are constantly receiving a fair challenge right as you beat enemies and turn based rpgs you gain experience and with enough grinding winning is less dependent on your own decision-making and more a factor of how over-leveled you are quick time events can hardly be called a challenge but they do look and feel nice roguelikes like inscription and

hades become easier as the game passes because you'll consistently find power-ups that will stick with you in your next run meaning you'll never truly start from scratch again if you keep struggling the game will keep accommodating mario kart rewards you with better items if you're doing worse and some games like resi iv and max payne actually change the difficulty of enemies if you aren't playing well in an attempt to keep you feeling like a badass and this is not a critique by the way games are built to craft an experience and if you're struggling more

than the devs want it can tarnish the intended message however when it comes to locus of control i think you and i would agree that a victory in most games can be attributed to either our own skill or just as easily attributed to the game being built as an interactive tour that's designed to be beaten can i really feel like i've accomplished a feat if i beat final fantasy vii remake can i flex on people that i got past bilasite and skyward sword i think for some people video games though fun are generally patronizing with

their difficulty and any victory in them can be easily attributed to the game setting you up for success and not your own merits again not a bad thing per se but very much the norm i feel souls games however are quite different there is no in-game reward for failure here there are upgradeable equipment and levels but easily the biggest determining factor is your performance there is no luck there are no reverse feedback loops or pity items there are no dynamic difficulty adjustments there is no easy mode if most games are built to be beaten fromsoft

games are built to make you quit your zeldas your arkham's your tsushimas they all provide an adventure but these games provide a provocation they insist that they can't be bested and they dare you to try and prove them wrong every enemy is a threat there is no ego fodder here damage is never neglectable nothing is ever certain and this series will embarrass you just as early and often as some others will coddle you sometimes bosses are every nightmare you've ever had minced sauteed and served to you in disgusting steaming heaps and other times they are

every bit as ferocious as they are regal the terrain is often breathtaking both in its semblance and in its treachery there is a boss in bloodborne literally called amygdala which is the part of your brain that processes fear and aggression and because of all this if you've ever beaten one of these games you'll know that it wasn't because you deserved it it's because you damn well earned it there is absolutely no way to flunk your way through souls games and because of this there is no way to have an external attribution for them these games

demand that you take it fully upon yourself to win so any victory afforded to you will be seen with an internal locus and since you knew that you were the one that made this happen and not the game since you took that dare proved to the game and yourself that you could do it and rose to the occasion your self-efficacy rose right along with you which if we are to believe the study from earlier should have a direct psychological effect on some of those darker thoughts by climbing out of the pit that from soft games

throw you in you are provided with first-hand evidence that you can in fact overcome those demons and you can do it on your own merits if you feel like there's something wrong making that first initial step to actively try and better yourself is such a great achievement i don't know gave me some sort of sense of control in my life that i somehow went from sucking ass fighting the skeletons at the beginning of an accident and beating the game the way to live a happy life becomes clear take the little steps to gain as much

agency over your life as possible it's certainly important to note a few things like in the 2021 article from earlier self-efficacy is only negatively correlated with depression anxiety worry and social avoidance it doesn't mean that raising self-efficacy is guaranteed to fix those things the relationship goes both ways correlation isn't causation you could certainly see where repeated failure leads to low efficacy and in turn depression but you could also imagine that the death of a loved one creates a depression that leads to the person feeling helpless we can say with confidence that both factors are related

in an inverse manner but while it may help beating bloodborne won't necessarily bring you out of that dark place these games aren't for everyone and even if it is for you it may not be everything you need but i think the reason this series does change so many people is because in a lot of cases that boost to self-efficacy has a very real palpable effect on anxiety and the like i'm stressed about dealing with people at work and my heavy course load at school but after beating artorias after beating the demon of hatred after finally

getting past margaret maybe it's not too much for me to handle of course self-efficacy in souls games is not the same thing as self-efficacy in life right this does not translate to being a good conversationalist or even a good person well yeah winning here won't fix your problems but the efficacy from it may be more generalizable than you think one study found that self-efficacy training in a sample of women increased self-efficacy perceptions not only for self-defense skills but also across a handful of things like sports competencies and coping skills in another 2011 meta analysis researchers

found that in patients with high blood pressure higher self-efficacy was associated with self-care behaviors like medication adherence physical activity and dietary changes our confidence in one task it seems often bleeds into other domains of our life for many people i think miyazaki's works are a wake-up call an invitation to find proof of your strength disguised as a hauntingly gorgeous game that your friends won't stop talking about i think every single one of us would be lying if we said that we've never doubted our ability to do anything sometimes something as simple as getting out of

bed in the morning feels like a herculean task sometimes trying to believe a positive thought is like trying to start a fire in a rainstorm but what i love about these games and really any game that's brutally difficult is that they are every bit as harsh as reality sometimes much like your real life circumstances they don't care about you or your feelings they are what they are unmoving unwavering unyielding and even so you still face them head on much like trophic cascades this is not just an encouraging sentiments it's a very real measurable phenomena overcoming

difficulty builds confidence it builds perseverance it builds your self-efficacy and gives you proof that you can overcome whatever the universe has placed in front of you and knowing that others have overcome the same challenges you have both in these games and in the real world can remind us that we are not alone in our struggle you are not the first or the last to fight the good fights and it's one that you can win you know that now don't you so keep on fighting that fight be safe friends and don't you dare go hollow hey

there thank you so very much for being here i hope you liked this one it felt nice to take a break from the creepy stuff and get back to something that was a little more heartfelt i finished dark souls in january and it was everything everyone said it was at the time of me writing this i am only 24 hours away from the elder ring release so even though there was probably a ton of footage from that game in the video past me is losing his mind the other past me who is recording this right

now is having the time of his life this game is amazing let me know your journey with the soulsborne ring series down below as always a massive thank you to my wonderful patreon supporters who i have been absolutely spoiling lately weekly updates behind the scenes content voting on new topics general shooting the breeze it's all there and is only a dollar a month if you'd like to join link on screen in a moment and in the description right now thanks especially to this month's featured patrons spicy 656 nines to be math won't miss you [Music]

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