I finally got round to watching this video and the part about ghosts towards the end really just brought me to tears. Realizing that all the opportunities and privileges I've had in life come from the struggle and sacrifice of people I'll never know, who took selfless actions that only people living decades later benefited from, is the best kind of sobering look at humanity. One of my best friends, maybe the person who's changed my life the most, has disappeared from my life and we haven't had any real contact in years. But the effect her words and actions had on me still persists to this day. That ghost, that spectral voice, is still with me even if the living human is out of reach. This video made me feel like a person I deeply miss is maybe a little closer than I thought. Also I got really blindsided by seeing my own name in the video credits after such a profound ending, I'd thought this one had been made before I joined your Patreon. Proud to have contributed to such an amazing video!
Conway leaving caught me so off guard I cried p much through the whole rest of act 4. It felt like such a betrayal to me, that he was leaving us when we had come so far. So much of acts 2, 3, and 4 are about pulling in these people into this... family? And him leaving seemed to come out of no where. Of course I realized when I replayed the game that he had been slowly leaving us from the moment the game started. He was always going to leave, and in fact it's not clear if he was ever really with us, not in the same sense of everyone else. He's already far away at the start of the story, constantly flashing back to his old life and the way things were, and he just gets further and further. Conway CAN'T go where we're going, and the idea that he could have a life after this "one last job" was a lie I was telling myself.
I think that subversion of the narrative catharsis is a big reason why it is so impactful -- we expect a big emotional moment, but sometimes things won't and can't play out that way.
@@JonTheLitCritGuy Yeah the funny thing is when I played that chapter when it came out(I played it since 2013 so it's chapter by chapter), I quickly knew Conway would not return just like those old relatvies in your life. By then I had just lost my mother to cerival cancer so it resonated with me very very quickly. That's when I realized this is something really good on storytelling.
Lovely essay. I had to fast forward through the I'm Going That Way Scene cuz it still makes me cry big big tears every time. It was interesting playing through the whole of KR0 after I moved to Kentucky (actually drove down to roughly where the Marquez Farm would be once since that part is in a real place). It was interesting I guess because KR0's "magical" story is actually a truer history of the area than a lot of people out here are willing to tell themselves. Kentucky is almost like ground zero (!) for Capitalist Realism in a way, just because the dominant order has had to shrink the horizon of the thinkable so deeply here and in West Virginia and Tennessee to keep everyone from seeing what was taken, what was destroyed. But that's also why I have maybe the most hope out here; if capitalist realism CAN die, it's gonna die here first, like a canary in a coal mine.
I think you've expressed almost exactly what I was trying to communicate by using the Bong Joon Ho quote. (And I didn't realise but it's so cool that the game maps are actually somewhat accurate). The final bit of your comment made me thing about Johnny and Junebug again, these two machines who make music for the future who got started by literally being buried underground. Thanks again for helping me out 🤲🤲
Fantastic work, and I feel compelled to apologize for waiting this long to engage with it. You and your team of collaborators brought me back to a game that re-oriented my compass during my furloughing in 2020 in the early stages of the global pandemic we still find ourselves in. KRZ made me think and feel things then, and it makes me think and feel things now. Since then I've found solidarity within a working people's group in my mid-western town in the US, and with the help of you and your team those experiences have been re-contextualized and my compass once again reoriented. Thanks again. P.S. Its criminal that this work hasn't been seen by more people and sits right up there (in my humble opinion) with essays written by Noah Caldwell-Gervais.
Thank you so much -- this is exactly why I wanted to make the video and I am so glad it resonated and even more so to hear that you've found a group of people to travel along with (which is, I think, a pretty good starting definition for what solidarity means). Really appreciate you watching -- and hey, maybe if I keep going I'll get close to Noah's level :D
That was thoroughly depressing, but I don't blame the messenger. I appreciate the attention this video draws to what is certainly a root problem of the modern world and the way that it has transformed human life in ways that nobody ever anticipated. This is really a story about how we have eroded our own humanity in service to what originally seemed like an amazing opportunity to create. Also, this is a reminder that we haven't lost our humanity entirely, but that the path we walk may be leading somewhere we don't want to be. Telling stories like this one - stories that appeal to personal connection to each other and to our past - is the way to get people to listen who would otherwise reject explanations about economics or law. And if they still won't listen, at least you've created some beautiful art. My concern, I think, is that anyone with the patience to watch the entire video (94 minutes, essentially a film) already has the attention and desire to learn to be aware of our circumstances. How can we get people to be patient and pay attention?
This is a great way of putting what I was trying to do with this video into words which I really appreciate. As far as an answer to your question, I don't know. And I don't know if there is an answer but I was thinking about Johnny and Junebug again. What they were, what everyone around them thought they were is so far removed from what they became. I guess I think that providing the space for that kind of reflection is important and just what I think good art criticism can do. And thank you for watching ✊
When this was posted, I left it open in a tab as a reminder to go back and finish playing this game. I had started it near the beginning of last year, but as things started to close down, I found myself not wanting to confront what KR0 wanted to show me. I played through the game last month and let it sit for a while before finally returning to this video. You've done such a wonderful job of capturing the key moments and unpacking them, and I'm grateful for that.
Im very grateful for this video because my attention span wouldn't let me get invested in the game enough to finish it but I was still very interested in its themes and how it's built. You deserve more views!
I don't think I can properly write about my appreaction for this video, but I do think this is probablly the best Video essay I've watched and definitly the best on both KR0 or its themes. Thanks for compiling this!
I just stumbled across this video after playing Kentucky Route Zero for my second time. I am currently working on my Master's thesis about American road narratives in video games, and KRZ is one of the games I am focusing on. I am happy that a lot of your insights in this video go together with my own observations I made while playing the game too - but there was a lot of stuff in this video that was new to me!
This was such a wonderful video essay that really captured the themes of the game. I was wondering if there are different paths in the game, because when I played, I don't remember Conway leaving by boat, you had to leave him down below where the distillery was. And then after that was an extended scene at a local television broadcast. Did anyone else have this experience or am I misremembering?
The section at the TV station is the fourth interlude which I didn't have time to cover (the video would have been even longer!) And yes there is a whole lot in the game - I'm already planning another playthrough!
So this video has helped me better understand this weird "game" (I don't consider it a game, a game is Ninja Gaiden, Mario, GTA, Forza etc..) Im not into point and click but I played through KR0, it had me hooked although I haven't a clue what was going on, some dude making a delivery to a place he can't find and meeting a load of oddballs along the way, the music was sublime along with the artwork but some of the writing bored me to death, and the last chapter was crap but still it's the only point and click that kept me gripped.
Really great balance of analysis that acknowledges and includes the feelings the analysis itself evokes. It was handled skillfully, and even though I haven't played the game I still feel like I got so much from this video.
Hey thank you so much for watching - I really appreciate it. And if you ever do play the game (I hope you do!) please drop back around and let me know what you thought!
Absolutely fantastic video. I honestly had a really hard time (hehe) understanding Kentucky Route Zero, and specifically what it all meant. This video really recontextualized a lot of things, and revealed the political commentary that I had never even remotely noticed or considered. You see, I took Kentucky Route Zero as a story about life and death. It had a lot of smaller themes, like the ones you mentioned about the fleeting nature of relationships, but in my eyes, that was the whole overarching point of the story (specifically Conway's plot). I saw his departure for Hard Times whiskey as a metaphor for his passing away. When he was taken away, it was abrupt, and done in an unemotional, uncaring way. That's death. It just takes, at any time, any place, regardless of who it hurts. This really stuck out to me. And Shannon's struggle with Conway's "death" really appealed to me emotionally. Like I said, this video is absolutely amazing, and serves as proof to me that a relatively low view count does not mean low quality. I think this video, and KR0 in general, is super underrated. Thanks for helping me see this game more clearly.
i feel oddly a bit special having been only the two thousandth some-odd person to have seen this video. the quality of your work speaks for itself. thank you.
Wow this was so beautiful and moving, you managed to cover so much about different facets of the problems of our current system but still have a beautiful melancholic hope in there too. Just beautiful thank you!! Also I loved the way you broke it up into quotes and songs, I was hooked the whole way through!!
I was very moved by the end. I can't help thinking about all the strangers in my life I could've been friends with. It breaks my heart but I also think about how the pople around me now used to be strangers as well. Everyone owes eachother so much
