Daniel and Phillip

[Froge]

I'm going to have to both agree and disagree with you there.

AGREES: Danger encountered. This is more true for Overture than Black Plague, as there were several particular places in Overture where you could potentially die every time you took a step (the ice lake and that steam vent place come to mind). The worm chase was also more intense than anything Daniel's gone through.

DISAGREES: Well, let's start with the value of goal achieved. First of all, I would argue that Daniel's quest was anything but vengeance. I suppose it started off as a vengeance quest, but realistically it goes much beyond that. To start, if Alexander had succeeded in returning to his home world (let's just say he didn't for the sake of storyline; Amnesia wouldn't make sense if Daniel allowed himself to lose), he would have pulled off the biggest karma houdini in the history of anything. The world of Amnesia implies that an afterlife exists, as shown by the scene if you choose Agrippa's ending. And before you go all relativistic on me, I'll mention that if you go with Daniel's ending, he also says "I gave them that awful man," which further implies that some absolute form of justice, divine or not, exists in the world of Amnesia. Heck, the Shadow kills Alexander but spares Daniel for no real reason if you knock down the pillars. The universe must be angry as fuck with him.

We can only assume that Alexander has been up to his villainy for a few hundred years, which likely means that he's probably tortured just as much people as the Tuurngait virus has infected. Half the people that are infected by the virus don't even seem that tortured; some are perfectly happy being part of the hivemind. But just about every person touched by Alexander died an unbearably painful and torturous death. Daniel's statement, then, that "I gave them that awful man" must mean that his quest is not just payback, but ultimately also of balancing the scales, to not only avenge himself but also every single person Alexander has tortured.

Emotional Strain: Sorry, but I wasn't feeling much of Philip's "connection" with Red, Clarence, and Amabelle throughout the game. Red was really the only person that I ended up caring for, although he is clearly insane, as there's that one scene from Overture where I believe he goes berserk and insults Philip for "helping to guide him" and being ignored or something like that. As for Amabelle, I felt extremely suspicious of her, as there's that one part when she says "One of the symptoms of being infected is deja vu" twice, so I thought she was trying to trap me the whole time. And maybe this is just a personal thing, but I don't think I could really feel "connected" to someone I've never even seen before, so although I felt immensely sorry for Red when he died, I don't think it could've been mind-melting trauma. Though I would be pissed as fuck if I saw that I accidentally killed Amabelle.

On the other hand, Daniel experiences absolute soul-crushing guilt when he realizes just how badly he's been manipulated. See, the problem with guilt is that it's very hard to do something about it. Lost a very good friend and / or loved one? (Although I doubt Red was that close to Philip) Yeah, it will wear you down and you might sink into depression, but eventually it wears off because the human brain is very good at adapting and moving on. This is something I have experienced myself before so I know exactly how it feels to never be able to see someone you love and care about ever again.

Guilt, on the other hand, will burn away at your very sanity. It stays with you and becomes a part of your conscience. When I entered that room Red had lived in after killing him, I did feel remorse that he had to die. But when I read that note about how Daniel realizes Alexander had tricked him all along, I had gallons of sympathy pretty much oozing out of myself for him. I can't even imagine how it would feel to know that you just tortured and murdered several completely innocent people, one of them even a child. If I was Daniel I wouldn't even have reached for the Amnesia potion. I'd just have taken that knife and offed my own head. Oh yeah, and that ending where you stay and die in the cells? That's probably one of the most disturbingly sad conclusions I've seen in a video game, especially with those tortured voices being replayed from Daniel's memory in the background.

Overall Epicness: This one actually comes very close. Penumbra definitely shows more interesting moral and philosophical questions than Amnesia, especially the ending of Requiem when you can decide to either "rejoin" the mass of conformity that is humanity (which is no different than conforming to the Tuurngait hivemind, imo) or to kill Philip in the incinerator. However, I would have to give the edge to Amnesia for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Penumbra seems much more a journey through the self than Amnesia if you look at it wholistically. I would say that the incinerator ending is generally considered to be the "good" ending of Requiem, so I'll go with that in terms of plot. What does Phillip achieve by burning himself to death? Well....nothing, really. Why is he trying to deny his own humanity? Humans are social animals. We're made to conform, to exist in collective societies. Most of us are happier when we are obeying exactly what authority tells us to do. Yes, I know it's kind of sad, but it's the truth. I would even say that I'm happier when I'm conforming than when standing out. Individuality comes at such a heavy price.

Right, Phillip tells his friend to terminate the Tuurngait Virus. But this is really up to interpretation; we've yet to know whether his friend does it. Furthermore, as I've explained before, the Tuurngait Virus doesn't even seem all that evil....some people appear perfectly happy to be part of the hivemind, whereas Alexander is, quite clearly, an insanely deranged and selfish psychopathic maniac. There are also some things with the Tuurngait that seem more laughable to be than, well, "evil". There's the acid trip Philip seems to go on when he gets infected, which didn't even scare me all that much - I was too weirded out by it to feel much "horror" (with the exception of those creepy-ass hands sticking out of walls). The Tuurngait's voice in the last part of Black Plague when Philip goes through the trials is also so typical omniscient-entity-evil like that I thought it was totally cliche. Finally, as a pet peeve of sorts, Tuurngait is a bit dumb, in my opinion. If it wants to convey to Philip that it isn't so bad, why does it turn people into....weird demon-like things that have leaking umbilical cords? Most effective strategy I've ever seen.

I'll make my thoughts about the "epicness" of Amnesia brief. Firstly, it is known that, while the rest of the world passes by, Alexander just sits in his own little corner, randomnly torturing people unlucky enough to wander into his path. He is established as a villain that lurks in the shadows; unimportant enough to avoid being caught, but still a heinous being. All previous attempts to bring down Alexander, or at least reason with him, have proven unsuccessful as shown by Klass and Gabriel's Remember stories, even including the Order of the Black Eagle since they apparently wanted his head. Then Daniel just waltzes into the scene, one-mans his way through the most horrific castle in existence, and brings down Alexander mere seconds before he pulls off his epic karma houdini.

And yes, I do think that, despite Philip's journey being far more dangerous, Daniel's is overall more epic because Brennenburg was better for inflicting mental trauma, which is where it hurts the most. Not once in Penumbra did I ever feel the complete fucking psychological dread as when Daniel saw all those dead bodies in the Morgue, or when he rediscovers the depraved torture rooms of his past. Penumbra has a more...remorse tone that leaves the player with a feeling of catharsis, but since this is a question of "epicness", Amnesia, in my opinion, is the better of the two.