A Playground of the Unsaid:
Pragmatic Analyses of
"Let's Play God Hand"
It has been said that linguists need
a "science of the unsaid". Pragmatics is a discipline of (cognitive)
linguistics that attempts to provide that science; a science that models the
way an utterance acquires its full meaning, beyond its purely lexical sense,
the meaning it acquires in context. Because the field is so incredibly broad,
there exists a cornucopia of sub-disciplines investigating specific aspects of
all the information that is relevant to understanding a given utterance, and
sometimes encoded into the language, but never made explicit. In this essay, I
intend to discourse on three of them (deixis, Conversation Analysis, and
Politeness Theory), illustrating their key points with examples from data I
have collected: a transcript of one part of a Let's Play (an Internet
phenomenon, halfway between a review of a video game and a walkthrough for it).
In it, two Let's Players (known only by their handles Kung-Fu Jesus and Medibot)
offer commentary on a video recording of Kung-Fu Jesus playing the game in
question: God Hand, a difficult and humorous fighting game for the Playstation
2. (The full transcript is attached as an appendix; excerpts are presented in
context as necessary.)
Deixis
Deixis, from the Greek word for
"pointing", is the act of indicating, with language, elements that
are relevant to the proper interpretation of an utterance (usually the extra-linguistic
elements of person, place, and time, except in the special case of discourse
deixis, by which another part of the text is indicated). Transcribing a
commentary track on a recording of a video game lends itself superbly to an
analysis of deictic forms; indeed, it could be argued that the entire
conversation is in some way deictic. Aside from digressions, the participants
are discussing things happening on the screen, necessarily outside and
independent of the conversation, which requires them to reference visual
elements deictically if they intend to be understood. Because the commentary is
structured like a presentation, it warrants no more than a passing mention that
the participants' introduction of themselves as characters in the performance
is also necessarily deictic:
Kung-Fu
Jesus: welcome
back to Let’s Play God Hand, this is Kung-Fu Jesus,
Medibot:
this is Medibot
The following
exchange shows examples of each basic kind of deixis (person, place, time, and discourse):
1
MB: that it I just
wasn't expecting it w- then again this is
2
an adult playground so I've- maybe I should have
braced
3
myself for something like that
4
KFJ: speaking of.. this is the beginning of stage three..
5
and it looks quite a bit different than what we've
been
6
seeing
7
MB: it does. you're
at some sort of.. circus.. a circus.. of
8
love.
Firstly,
"this" in l.1 can be interpreted as discourse deixis; the title of
the video (as well as the part of video game being discussed) is "An Adult
Playground", and as the video makes clear, the game proper has not started
yet, so Medibot can be said to be referring to the entire "text" of
the video rather than the in-game environment. By contrast, "this" in
l.4 is an example of place deixis; the indeterminate nature of the
demonstrative is overruled by context. A "stage" is understood as one
of the areas into which the game's setting has been divided, and therefore to
refer to that chronological segment of the game as well as the actual
environment in which that segment takes place, as it is used here (that it is
referring to a physical location can be inferred from the reference to how it
looks). The utterance immediately following it, beginning in l.7, displays both
person and time deixis, and serves furthermore to illustrate the importance of
participant relations to an analysis of deixis: implicit in the act of pointing
is that one must be pointing from somewhere
or something, at a given time, to someone,
somewhere or something else at a given time (possibly but not necessarily the
same time). Naturally, these positions must be defined somehow if a deictic
form is to be understood. Line 7's "you're" serves both the function
of indicating time and indicating person; encoded in the present tense is the
information that Medibot is referring to something occurring at the same time
in which he is speaking, while the use of the second person pronoun would seem
to indicate that he is speaking to Kung-Fu Jesus. However, the rest of the
utterance makes clear that he cannot be, because Kung-Fu Jesus is not presently
at a circus in a video game, he is sitting behind a computer screen discussing the
game. The correct interpretation of the utterance (that it refers to the main
character of the game) follows from the knowledge that it is common to identify
with the character one controls in a video game; use of the second person
pronoun reflects the fact that Kung-Fu Jesus was the one playing the game at
the time of recording. (The manner in which this contextual knowledge is
acquired and informs the discourse is the domain of relevance theory, which I
do not have the space to discuss here.) A final distinction that must be
articulated when discussing deixis is between "gestural" and
"symbolic" use of a deictic form; the last two examples from the above
exchange demonstrate this difference as well. Gestural deixis is a more-or-less
literal indication (as could be imagined accompanying a pointing gesture, hence
the term): "this" and not "that" is "the beginning of
stage three", while by contrast "you're" (the character is)
"at […] a circus", the reference being implicit in the utterance
rather than explicit.
Conversation analysis (CA)
Conversation analysis, hereafter
referred to as CA, is at its most fundamental an attempt to make useful
generalizations about the way people speak together, in order to construct a
model that can describe accurately the way a conversation works- a sort of
generative grammar of conversation, as it were. Graddol (1987) references a
group of features, ostensibly common to all conversations, formulated by a
previous generation of conversation analysts; these features, including the
concept of a "turn" (the unspoken agreement that a particular
participant should or should not be speaking at a given time), turn-taking (changes
in the agreement designating a particular turn in favor of a new one), and the
variability of the length and order of turns, which necessitate a clear system
of signaling who should and should not be speaking (p. 151), this system being
referred to as a local management system (identifying the system with a
metaphorical sorting machine). Furthermore, CA considers the preferential
status of responses (the state of being either preferred or dispreferred; that
is to say, the form of an utterance implies the expectation of a particular
sort of response, which the actual response can conform to or deviate from),
the nature and presence or absence of overlap during turn-taking (ie. more than
one speaker speaking simultaneously, when the system specifies that only one
should have the right), as well as silence (no speaker speaking when one should
have the right), to have significance as regards the mechanics of conversation.
The following exchange demonstrates several of these features:
1
MB: ah it's nasty
but she throws her hat because women will
2
throw hats
3
KFJ: … r::ight I
guess.. this is mostly because she has a
4
hat.. and that has blades on it
5
MB: but does she
have the hat because she's she's a woman..
6
or is she a woman because she has that hat?
7
KFJ: I think neither
… /I'm not sure but/
8
MB: /dyou really
think/ these two facts are unrelated?
9
KFJ: I really do..
because I am pretty sure there are people
10
in this game who.. have hats who are not women and
who are
11
women and don't have hats
12
MB: well. things
other than having a hat can make a person a
13
woman /but/
14
KFJ: /right/
15
MB: is her hat what
makes her a woman.
16
KFJ: … I don't think
so.. I think the fact that she has
17
boobs.. /and wearing a one-piece/
18
MB: /you think it's
the boob?/
19
KFJ: yeah she's
/wearing a one-piece/
20
MB: /perplexing/
21
KFJ: and.. high
boots.. so /I'm pretty sure/
22
MB: /I guess that's/
a valid theory
23
KFJ: … /I think it
yeah/
24
MB: /why do they/
just leave all their money in that..
25
concession stand like that
For
instance, the transitions between speakers in this exchange are very frequently
marked by overlap; where this is the case, there is often a clear distinction
possible between the speaker with the turn and the speaker without. Lines 16 to
21 consist, essentially, of Kung-Fu Jesus' response to Medibot's question in
line 15, but it is sprinkled throughout with backchannels: short, in this
instance (but not necessarily) vocal cues from Medibot indicating he is hearing
and understanding what is being said (lines 18 and 20). Lines 21 and 22, by
contrast, are a more straightforward kind of overlap; Medibot interrupts Kung-Fu
Jesus as the latter is producing a conclusion for his argument; this would have
had the illocutionary force of further increasing the argument's persuasive
power, but Medibot's interruption signals that the argument has already
succeeded, and therefore the conclusion is no longer needed. The initial
silence in line 23 reflects the time it takes Kung-Fu Jesus to process this
information and respond to Medibot's newly-produced agreement; however,
Medibot's perception of the conversation's duration in time is not similarly interrupted,
so he perceives the silence as marking the end of Kung-Fu Jesus' turn, such
that when Kung-Fu Jesus finally starts to produce a response, this overlaps
with line 25 as Medibot begins a new adjacency pair. Finally, returning to the
beginning of the exchange, we can find an example of a dispreferred response.
Medibot makes a joke about one of the characters in the game phrased as a
generalization about women; this creates the expectation that either Kung-Fu
Jesus will laugh at the generalization's absurdity (if he finds the joke funny)
or will acknowledge it and "play along" (for a variety of reasons; he
might wish to indicate solidarity with Medibot, or he might be unwilling to
accord to him alone the social status concordant with the state of "having
been funny"). Kung-Fu Jesus, however, does neither of these things; he
instead directly refutes the generalization as though it was meant seriously,
which, according to CA, requires him to hedge his response as he does in l.3
(with an affirmative "right" that is entirely negated by the
preceding silence, the lengthening of the vowel, the falling tone and the
following "I guess").
Politeness Theory
In contrast to deixis, which takes
participant relations as the principal elements of the unsaid to focus on, and
CA, which analyzes the chronological course of a conversation to elicit
insights about the system that governs this course, politeness theory posits a
sort of field permeating a conversation that causes speakers to gravitate
towards particular (forms of) utterances based on the properties of the
relationship between them and how the utterance would affect this relationship.
The principal term to define in this regard is "face", as in the
colloquialism "to lose face"; politeness theory takes the concept to
its logical conclusion, defining "face" as the image presented by a
speaker to their interlocutors. This concept then further differentiates
between positive face and negative face. This nomenclature perhaps makes the
most sense if one imagines the "in-group" (that is to say: a group
including, at least, both the speaker and hearer of a particular utterance) as
having positive polarity like a physical magnet: the desire to belong (in other
words, attraction) to a group consisting of one's interlocutors is represented
by positive face, while the desire to be seen as an independent individual
capable of self-determination is represented by negative face. Concordantly, speech
acts that infringe upon or strengthen either one of these images (in either
participant), called face-threatening and face-saving acts, become important
objects of scrutiny. Additionally, various degrees of explicitness are
distinguished (and usually determined by the social relations between the
interlocutors; hence the name of the theory, as the required amount of
politeness, being a social construct, is dictated by the precise social
relationship between two participants), especially when performing a
face-threatening act (commonly abbreviated FTA), by whether the threat is on-
or off-record, whether an on-record threat is mitigated or not, and whether the
mitigation uses positive politeness (emphasizing the positive qualities of the
hearer) or negative (downplaying the positive qualities of the speaker). The
following exchange provides examples:
1
MB: which answers
the question of what defines uh an
2
object's existence? If
3
KFJ: alright let's
just not go into that /it's kinda late/
4
MB: /if you have/ a
boat.. and you take the boat apart.. and
5
then rebuild it is it the same boat?
6
KFJ: … good question.
one I don't care to uh discover the
7
answer to
8
MB: are there boats
in this game? I think there are a bit
9
like
10
KFJ: look man, look
man, stop stop talking, all right,
11
because I really don't- I uh don't have the brainpower
to
12
think about it,
13
MB: you don't? S POS
14
KFJ: and it's ten
In
l.3, Kung-Fu Jesus issues the first in a series of threats to Medibot's
negative face: he is increasingly averse to digressions, as they are near the
end of the video and the hour is late, but Medibot persists in trying to
maintain the sort of random banter they have kept up throughout the video. In
exercising his authority as the author of the Let's Play, he limits Medibot's
capacity to determine his own contributions to the commentary, first in an
on-record threat with redress using both positive and negative politeness: he
issues a directive to drop the current topic, but emphasizes Medibot's positive
face by saying "let's" (he indicates the two of them form a group,
and therefore presumably enjoy equal status), while simultaneously implying
that his request is not a particularly demanding one ("just") and
that it is reasonable ("it's kinda late"). When Medibot fails to
comply with the directive, Kung-Fu Jesus turns to a different strategy in l.6,
first performing an off-record FTA using irony (silence followed by "good
question") and then an on-record FTA, mitigated through negative
politeness (he implies that the disparity between their willingness to continue
the banter is because Medibot cares more about the mental exercise, arguably a
positive quality). Medibot refuses to comply again, and, frustrated, Kung-Fu
Jesus flat-out tells him to stop talking (a bald imperative, and therefore an
unmitigated threat to his negative face). Frustration abating, Kung-Fu Jesus
retroactively mitigates the threat by saying he doesn't have the brainpower to
continue the discussion (another instance of negative politeness). Chastised,
and his positive face now diminished (because there are only two of them, the
only possible
groupings
are "Kung-Fu Jesus and Medibot" versus "Kung-Fu Jesus" and
"Medibot": any threat to negative face must imply a difference in
status, and thus make the former grouping untenable), Medibot performs a
face-saving act to Kung-Fu Jesus' positive face (by expressing surprise at the
apparent difference in brainpower; the tacit assumption that has just equally
tacitly been done away with is that they were equal in that regard and
therefore part of the same group) and therefore saves his own.
Conclusion
In this essay I hope to have given a
brief account of three sub-disciplines within the field of pragmatics, deixis,
which examines the relations between participants in discourse, as expressed principally
by the use of tense, pronouns and demonstratives; Conversation Analysis, which
looks at the sequential flow of a conversation as an expression of a system
that governs this flow; and Politeness Theory, which attributes to speakers the
desire to maintain certain images of themselves towards others and describes
the ways in which these desires can be fulfilled or frustrated. I have
illustrated these disciplines using examples from the data I have collected: a
transcript of one part of a hybrid review/walkthrough of a video game. Of
course the field of pragmatics is near-infinitely more complex than the short
exegesis here presented can do justice to, but I hope nevertheless to have
provided a basic understanding of how the science goes about its business.
Word count (not including
examples): 2295 words
Works cited
Dailymotion.
KungFuJesus. "God Hand 3-1 : An Adult Playground" [recording of
gameplay]. Retrieved from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4smlf_god-hand-3-1-an-adult-playground_videogames.
God
Hand [Playstation 2 software]. (2007). San Mateo, CA: Capcom.
Graddol,
D. et al. (1987). Describing Language. Milton
Keynes: Open University Press.
Appendix: transcript
of "God Hand 3-1 : An Adult Playground"
Kung-Fu Jesus: welcome back to
Let’s Play God Hand, this is Kung-Fu Jesus,
Medibot: this is Medibot
KFJ: ,and we got a
cutscene so. shush:::
MB: we go to…
((in-game
cutscene, female character is dressed in an unlockable bonus Playboy bunny
outfit))
KFJ: okay:.. so
/that's/
MB: /KFJ what have
you done to me?/
KFJ: /uh I/
MB: /I feel…
violated/
KFJ: /huh?/ what.
looking at women in scantily-clad? y'know
MB: that it I just
wasn't expecting it w- then again this is an adult playground so I've- maybe I
should have braced myself for something like that
KFJ: speaking of.. this is the beginning of stage 3..
and it looks quite a bit different than what we've been seeing
MB: it does. you're
at some sort of.. circus.. a circus.. of love.
KFJ: a circus of…
sin.. I'd like to think.
MB: love is kind of
a sin.. if you think about it in a more metaphorical abstract existentialist
sense
KFJ: I suppose so?
but.. whatever.. don't really care because right now we're fighting a a woman.
and this is the first um female elite that we've come across
MB: she's got a
pretty scary lookin hat /maybe put an eye out/
KFJ: /she does/ yeah
and I I hate to let them get their attack off but basically they take off their
hat the blades extend and they throw it at you.. like Bruce did and y'know he's
got that boomerang
MB: ah it's nasty
but she throws her hat because women will throw hats
KFJ: … r::ight I
guess.. this is mostly because she has a hat.. and that has blades on it
MB: but does she
have the hat because she's she's a woman.. or is she a woman because she has
that hat?
KFJ: I think neither
… /I'm not sure but/
MB: /dyou really
think/ these two facts are unrelated?
KFJ: I really do..
because I am pretty sure there are people in this game who.. have hats who are
not women and who are women and don't have hats
MB: well. things
other than having a hat can make a person a woman /but/
KFJ: /right/
MB: is her hat what
makes her a woman.
KFJ: … I don't think
so.. I think the fact that she has boobs.. /and wearing a one-piece/
MB: /you think it's
the boob?/
KFJ: yeah she's
/wearing a one-piece/
MB: /perplexing/
KFJ: and.. high
boots.. so /I'm pretty sure/
MB: /I guess that's/
a valid theory
KFJ: … /I think it
yeah/
MB: /why do they/
just leave all their money in that.. concession stand like that
KFJ: well I mean in
the if they were selling things and they were collecting money.. /it's not a/
MB: /but the stand
is/ clearly a- you just- oh my god that clown
KFJ: yeah the the
/that is a clown/
MB: /will you kill
that clown/
KFJ: his name is Gary
MB: Gary?
KFJ: this yeah /this
game preys on/
MB: /like xxxxxxxxx/
((incomprehensible, presumably the name of another fat enemy + relation))
KFJ: uh.. brother
actually .. he obviously went into the circus
MB: ah did clown
school
KFJ: /not really/
MB: /fighting with
an/ umbrella is pretty classy and so.. I'm gonna.. have to applaud you for
thinking of doing that
KFJ: yeah the uh the
umbrella is not like a normal weapon you do not swing with it as you would
another blunt powered object you stab with it.. in the face.
MB: right like the
Penguin would
KFJ: right.. um as
much as I don't like to compare Gene to villains from comic books.. yeah the
Penguin probably would do that
MB: except the
Penguin's was smaller and he'd spin it around to try to hypnotize you.. and it
never worked.. cause he's dumb
KFJ: he is pretty
dumb. ..but you know he never.. he always he always loses. /so uh/
MB: /he does/ can't
beat the Batman that easily.. not with a hypno umbrella …
KFJ: the the Batman
is mostly immune to mind effect mind effecting uh.. stuff. ..mostly.. uh there
is one weakness that he has and that's women? but usually he's takes good care
of them … and by take care of them I mean if they're bad he like.. y'know puts
them away in jail forever…
MB: well yeah
because.. he's still a crime fighter even if he does love women, as all Batmen
do
KFJ: … and then he
tells Robin y'know son y'shouldn't
uh.. hang out with those loose hussies
MB: that's true,
loose hussies are nothing but trouble ...
KFJ: mmkay so a
couple new enemies in this stage we already seen the clown Gary.. uh the zebra
suit guys his name is xxxxx we've seen him before.. and the woman with the whip
who well she's just a.. woman in white with a white hat.. um her name is.. well
what's her name.. uh..
MB: is it Stella?
KFJ: yeah Stella
MB: Stella?!
KFJ: … huh? it's
/Stella/
MB: /Stella:?!/
KFJ: ..not so loud
please /uh/
MB: /oh/
KFJ: yeah it's just
Stella it's /okay/
MB: /but it's/ a
regular Stella not a yelled /upstairs/
KFJ: /don't- not a/
yeah no need for alarm,
MB: okay. does she
have a sister named Loretta by any chance?
KFJ: I have no idea..
I don't know these demons' twisted family trees
MB: is that a box made
of knives
KFJ: it is, we'll get
to those later.. they're the reason why.. even though I haven't been hitting
anything uh you'll hear people getting launched.. in the background
MB: how can you
defeat a box?
KFJ: punch it.. how
do you defeat /anything in this game/
MB: /oh yeah/
KFJ: come on
MB: I feel I shoulda
thought of that
KFJ: yeah I thought
you were.. you know.. in the game
MB: uh no I'm not
uh.. in the game nor.. becoming a part of the game.. >oh you made the box
angry<
KFJ: no n no it just
activates after a while I got to it too late
MB: that box is /so
mad/
KFJ: /like/ .. but
it's like one of those things at the beach where you stand in it and uh.. and
put your face out and you get a buff figure
MB: ..oh
KFJ: yeah.. except in
this case it's got four sides.. a:nd uh periodically knives come out it spins
towards you
MB: so it's more
like the magic box that.. magicians will- stage magicians will use.. that
they'll put people in and then they'll make it look like they're getting stabbed
a whole lot /when they're actually not/
KFJ: /except it's/
the other way around.. the same track the /other way around/
MB: /you it’s/ you're
actually /being stabbed/
KFJ: /they put/ right
well it's more like.. um /what you/
MB: /and no one's/
in the box.. you're outside of the box
KFJ: well it's more
like um they put- a demon goes in the box and then.. instead of being stabbed
he stabs things
MB: so it’s a demon
in the box?
KFJ: yeah it's a
demon in the box
MB: oh okay. I don't
I don't this seems unsafe fighting so close to an exploding barrel
KFJ: you'd think so
but simply punching a barrel(.) does not make it explode which is weird, I
admit but
MB: that makes
sense, you can't just punch a barrel open, barrels are pretty strong you'd have
to punch it a couple times
KFJ: well Doom, Doom
tells us otherwise uh pressing forward and punching a barrel can cause it to
explode rather easily /and it/
MB: /those are/
shoddy barrels, these are high-quality demon barrels
KFJ: no what it is,
is this, in this game you punch things to defeat them right?
MB: right
KFJ: well barrels
don't need to be defeated so therefore punching them does not work. you get
where I'm coming from?
MB: oh! (.) no. but
I'll allow it
KFJ: okay well I'm
just saying items don't need to be defeated.. so they they yeah uh you you
punch them and nothing happens cause you can't defeat a barrel, don't need to
MB: don't want to?
KFJ: mostly /and
y'know/
MB: /can't hit it/
.. won't eat it?
KFJ: can't stand it.
uh.. don't feel like.. fighting this guy hardcore so I'm gonna just beat him
up.. what else is the God Hand for after all
MB: … uh well other
than punching and kicking guys u:m
KFJ: yeah /other
than/
MB: /I guess/
impressing women at bars?
KFJ: … yeah /um/
MB: /you've/ already
got that.. Olivia character always hangin around with you she'll probably repel
any attractive lady types
KFJ: yeah she's kind
of a psycho possessive nutcase lady thing
MB: she is.. but at the same time she's she she
seems completely uninterested in you, why do women do this?
KFJ: I think it’s a
farce, and she's only nineteen so uh
MB: oh that yeah
that makes it kind of weird
KFJ: and Gene's
twenty-three but.. I mean in this world of poke apocalyptic uh landscapes and
everything society has yet to /right itself/
MB: /wait Pokémon/
destroyed the world?
KFJ: uh Pokémon what?
MB: you you had
pokepocalyptic you said
KFJ: yeah..
pokepocalyptic.. uh society has yet to right itself back to what it once was
MB: yeah okay..
which Pokémon did it though?
KFJ: um
MB: what or was it
pokepocalyptic because all of the Pokémon were destroyed?
KFJ: it's that one.
MB: oh okay that's
kinda depressing.. they wiped out four hundred eighty six species
KFJ: it's a world
where you cannot exist really
MB: am I.. a
Pokémon?
KFJ: uh.. no but
you’re a person who probably would not be able to exist if there were no
Pokémon.
MB: did I exist
before Pokémon existed
KFJ: yes /definitely/
MB: /I I/ found a
small hole in your argument.
KFJ: … oh
MB: a small me-sized
hole
KFJ: hhh you are
rather small
MB: it's true /I am
not large/
KFJ: /uh anyway/ got
a little demon challenge here.. um basically fight a bunch of the people we’ve
been fighting all stage uh
MB: they don't seem
so tough
KFJ: ..it's true.. and,
y'know bunch of Stella.. um this first stage is easy because it's just them and
uh a Gary /who's.. there/
MB: /oh Gary/ you
goof
KFJ: but Gary's easy
cause he's a giant fatty, so
MB: he is
KFJ: just punch him a
whole lot
MB: and he like all
fatties he is vulnerable to stinging
KFJ: yeah...
MB: the biting gnat,
the stinging wasp, and me hitting you in the nose with my kneecap
KFJ: so we got uh
Miss Traffic here- by the way did I mention her name is Miss Traffic?
MB: is that Miss
Traffic?
KFJ: yeah
MB: that explains a
thing or two.. like the hat
KFJ: like her hat
yeah like the hat
MB: cause her hat
might be a traffic cone
KFJ: it uh looks
rather like a traffic /cone/
MB: /only/ somehow
deadlier than a regular traffic cone
KFJ: I don't think
there's any somehow involved.. >and we do the cossack dance of doom< oh
and this is an elite that we will see
later on in the next stage.. he's a robot
MB: oh my he is a
robot you can tell because sparks fly off when you hit him
KFJ: and he has a robotic
voice. his name is Mr. Red Robot
MB: that no- does he
have a theme song?
KFJ: no.
MB: that's a bit
depressing.. I always like my robots to have theme songs
KFJ: yeah he's not
cool enough to have a theme song … yeah I don't wanna take any chances..
MB: yeah you're
KFJ: and I wanna
finish this on level die so I can get max gold power look at that /thirty
thousand/
MB: /oh yeah/ thirty
thousand nice
KFJ: I love it..
/hmm/
MB: /awesome/
KFJ: heh
MB: ((whistles
appreciatively)) .. ha ha
KFJ: I dunno how many
tries that little devil challenge took /me/
MB: /oh yeah/ it
filled your health back up
KFJ: no it didn't
actually.. that's a clever edit.. thank you for uh
MB: ah!
KFJ: you know getting
rid of the illusion that I'm /perfect at/
MB: /hey uh I'm/
what can I say I like ruining things
KFJ: … uh hey
y'know.. I'll just call you next time I want uh y'know something ruined y'know
MB: yeah you need a
wet blanket maybe
KFJ: a TV y'know I've
got this nice TV, maybe you wanna come over and pee on it while I'm watching TV
MB: yeah I'll I'll
just pour some water on your television or maybe uh.. leave a slice of pizza on
top of your laptop
KFJ: oh yeah
MB: yeah
KFJ: .. while it's
on.. and then maybe close /the lid/
MB: /yeah yeah/
close the li- I'll put the slice of pizza on the keyboard, then close the lid
KFJ: yeah
MB: because I love
ruining good things
KFJ: like my laptop
MB: like your
laptop, and maybe every aspect of your personal existence.. everything you own
will be destroyed by me
KFJ: .. that would
suck.. I really like the things that I own
MB: well you can't
have them because I'm going to destroy them. ..so I guess you can still have
them, they'll just be destroyed
KFJ: ..well.. then
they're not really them anymore, they're destroyed /versions/
MB: /true/
KFJ: of them
MB: which answers
the question of what defines uh an object's existence? If
KFJ: alright let's
just not go into that /it's kinda late/
MB: /if you have/ a
boat.. and you take the boat apart.. and then rebuild it is it the same boat?
KFJ: … good question.
one I don't care to uh discover the answer to
MB: are there boats
in this game? I think there are a bit like
KFJ: look man, look
man, stop stop talking, all right, because I really don't- I uh don't have the
brainpower to think about it,
MB: you don't?
KFJ: and it's ten
MB: you should take
I uh my mental supplement
KFJ: what.. is your
mental supplement.. /what is it made of/
MB: /well it's more
like/ physical therapy uh which is to say.. I punch you in the back of your
head.. until you feel better
KFJ: p- then does
information go there? /like you punch there/
MB: /uh yeah cause/
I punch a hole and the information can flow directly through the hole into your
central processor
KFJ: ...I don't have
a c- well actually maybe I do have a central processor I'll get back to /you on
that/
MB: /if you don't/
have one we can always install one. and a key for some reason!
KFJ: yeah we're done
with the video well you have to open the /you have to beat them to open the
door so/
MB: /oh yeah the
key/ to open the door that leads to the heart that's pumping your b-
KFJ: so this is the
next the next level is the masked man's riddle, so it is the boss fight, so
we'll see you then.