I thought I was the only one who felt this way about Skyrim. I’m in a lonely point in life, but it helps to know someone has the same feeling for a game so special to me.
Skyrim was always unique for me as well. I still remember the day it came out and i was so hyped up playin it on my xbox 360. i came back to that came so often and it was still great. Best atmosphere i ever experienced.
I was literally going to comment exactly that. I have lost count of how many times I've reviewed the videos of Philosophy of Heroic Suffering and Stoicism in Gladiator.
Skyrim is definitely my special place, it’s almost absurd how big of an impact Skyrim has on so many people. I still remember perhaps my earliest memory of it. My brother was Playing the game fighting a dragon on a frozen mountain in the dead of night, with the fire and the sky being the only light source. (probably killed my man dragon man paarthurnax) but I remember finding it so mystical and special even when I hadn’t laid my hands on it yet.
Time and again i wish i could go back to when it first came out and re experience it again and again. If there was every a place i wish i could travel to and live in i really wouod choose skyrik i think
“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.” - C.S. Lewis
I find it so sad that people don’t see the world we live in is just as sacred in fact more so. Naturally curiosity and the free-roaming freedom stamped out as children. There is in this world places to discover, plants to utilize their alchemical properties, words of power, magical learnings, discoveries, and practices that permeate all accepts of being from our perceptive to our reality. People to befriend and help who one never knows how they would make it up to you. As great as this game’s myths are (they were inspired and mirror our real world for a reason). Still though I love the explicit metaphors and how such explicitness recon sled that spark and enthusiasm in people who play. I love this game.
@@wastelesslearning1245 YES! A gift of two legs and two arms to learn to use, ways of eating and living and being that enhance this experience called life and empower us to walk tall in THIS world. Nature to be enthralled by. Mysteries to comprehend. Seasons to observe. A body to be stretched and strengthened and shaped for functionality. Cycles to witness. Skills to acquire.
You are so aligned with my way of thinking about things, and what I like and find interesting, the synchronicity is so wholesome. I guess good things are simply good. Favourite channel on RU-vid.
I've been waiting for this video my whole life. As a devout Christian, I always struggled with the sense that I was experiencing something sacred while playing video games, but there was no language for it. When I would try to explain it to other people, I couldn't explain my feelings. I recently completed my master's thesis which unites religious and games studies together partially in a desire to discover this language. Thank you for helping me know myself better.
To be honest, as a Catholic, the combination of beautiful landscapes and nature plus gorgeous soundtrack is a key to a divine experience. For example, a old cathedral filled with rays of sunlight while a choir is singing touches the soul in a unique way. That's my perspective. Thanks for yours.
@@laramaria2908 Growing up Protestant, I experienced the "profaning" of sacred spaces where my religious tradition devalued sacredness in the material world, or by downplaying the union between heaven and earth primarily demonstrated in the incarnation. It's been a long road but I feel myself inexorably drawn to ancient sacred church traditions now.
@@cfriesen222 I think I can understand. In a way I feel like that too. But there is a concept who helped me enormously. That we are a castle. And God inhabits the very center of us. So when I feel myself disconnected from everything I try to connect within. Unfortunately I'm a lazy person who could have done that with more frequency, but when I do is always special, even without any sensation.
@@cfriesen222 Hey Colin, LOVED your comments to this video :) Is there any way I can read your thesis? I'm tremendously curious about that topic and I would love to discover more about it! Also my own thesis was about the "sense of sacred" in audiovisual works, it's something I'm costantly looking for and it's beautiful that other people out there are looking for the same thing :)
oohh would love to read your thesis as well (or like.. just talk to you bc our stories seem to harmonise - i grew up Baptist & because of that same rift between The World and Heaven, the secular/physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul, i was quite the little aesthete to the extent of starving myself & living pretty miserable in my body and in the world. and then just this summer God absolutely blew my world open and retaught me how to live from the ground up, and, well, i think in Jesus' words "made me whole". so likewise, though i'm committed to my original church for the people and to grow where i'm planted, i've found Eliade & exploring actual historical traditional Christianity *immensely* helpful for just my own understanding of my faith & my personal devotional life) N.D. Wilson "Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl" Pope John Paul III "Theology of the Body" {my email is abigail.sarah.phil4.8@gmail.com}
The developers and world builders at bethesda really pulled off something special with skyrim. And jeremy soule really outdid himself. That soundtrack is just too perfect for words. While it's a shame the rest of the experience doesn't live up to the promise of the world they created, time spent in skyrim is still such a wonderful escape.
It's New Vegas, for me. Though, it's a bittersweet affection, because it shows us ourselves, somewhat. Which makes it less of an escape from reality, like skyrim is.
Fun fact: if you never follow the main quest up to the point of the first dragon conflict outside of Whiterun, you won't actually get any dragons spawning in the world. Thus, you can play the "non-hero" without any powers.
This video is incredible. I have a memory (that's more a whole-body feeling) of playing Ratchet and Clank and/or Dino Crisis 2 in my parents house when I was little. To this day, I sometimes go back and listen to the soundtrack or watch someone playing the game. I can access a simpler, protected, warm, excited, and uncomplicated time. The idea of sacred spaces makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for making the videos you make. Every time I feel as though you click something into place in my head that's already been aligned but never been connected.
This was an amazing essay on Skyrim and I want to speak truthfully about this. Hearing your words on the center of our souls, finding the sacred in our world, and the meaningful lives we can live was profound. I felt taken away, and I cried, and I went to my knees to pray. Once again this was a great video on the story world and the sacred spaces, it's been a long time since anything has made me feel the things I felt while listening and watching. I hope and I pray that I can live a life with meaning. I want to live a life with meaning. Thank you, I hope you have a wonderful day today. Lots of love.
You are one of the justifications for the existence of RU-vid. This was an amazing video. I'd had some similar thoughts, but could never put it into words as well as you do. Watching this, I felt as if my mind had cleared and laid out all the answers at my feet. Thank you so much for your insight.
All you videos are so beautiful. You express your ideas so poetically that I was nearly in tears at the end of the video. I am envious of your talent and I think you should feel very proud of your work
I’m a non gamer. But I liked to watch my big sister and then my friends playing video games from times to times. I have the same feeling you have of the game with the real life, like you said: exploration, talking to everyone, working on my skills... My sacred space as been internet and especially RU-vid, since 2009. I consider it like my third parent because of the impact it has on me.
I hadn't heard of skyrim... a beautiful game. I stopped playing role playing games when my arthritis became too painful. Maybe I need to visit the doctor and what he could do? What I thought of, as you were speaking, was writing a story.. even a novel, and creating through the novel, an inner sacred space. An inner temple of initiation. I am considering returning to a novel I began writing as young woman. I lost my nerve while writing it... found it too personal and painful. It is now time to continue. The world has changed immeasurably since I was 30. I could self publish, not to make money, but to share my vision of my inner worlds. There is more to life than the profane. I feel as alien in this age because I truly believe in the sacred being the basis of all life.
Been following your channel for years. Never commented on a single social media post. Wanted to let you know that your work is a gift to existence! Ive never seen you do an analysis of Westworld, but I feel you would really be able to five deep into many aspects of consciousness and reality with that one.
I had a thought after reaching level 100 and maxing out my character to my preference. Why is it that I have this crazy amount of drive and determination to improve my character of that resides in a imaginary world, yet I lack the motivation to do anything with the life I choose I live. Perhaps its the wonder of that imaginable world, or the fact that nothing can truly finish me. That drive never really existed in my life regarding myself, I only cared about the worlds that I would never in real life be apart of.
I still return to Skyrim on occasion. I live in Whiterun at Breezehome. I just can’t bring myself to live anywhere else. When i travelled to Solstiem and spent a sizeable amount of time completing the quests there and helping the people, upon my return to Whiterun i had a meaningful nostalgic glow burn bright with in me. Like i had been away too long. I spent (and still spend) a large amount of time simply selling treasures to local friends. Cooking, spell making, redecorating and crafting in my small intangible world.
That's an interesting point. The game has some places which are more nostalgic for us than other places. I generally end up always buying Breezeholme instead of the other homes in the game just like you do.
I appreciate and agree with your analysis, but I would like to add that Skyrim feels more special due to the connection I have come to feel with other Skyrim players. Though it's an individual experience, we all share this sacred space. Games like this spark people's creativity and they create fascinating videos and mods that deepen my own connection to the world. When I meet another Skyrim player, I know we have a whole special world in common and I love when we share our experiences within it. Cheers to all the world's gamers!
Hey partner, I just wanted to say that my dad and I love listening to you. You are an incredible translator of the truths of this world and the way you convey the impact of these various stories means a lot. Keep being incredible, friend 🤟
Skyrim was my refuge when I was a depressed middle schooler with no friends, and I am certain I was not the only one in that position. I find myself going back to it in hard parts of my life, searching again for the comfort of a world I know- and can control- almost perfectly.
Skyrim is the only game i could back always just to explore the world, i love all cities, roads, the people, is like home , no other game accomplish this
Thousands of hours since it's release. I'm still playing Skyrim actively since I am 8 years old. Even though it's not a perfect game, it's my favourite above all others. Not in any other game have I spent so much time, so many sleepless nights lurking through Dwemer ruins, getting that next daedric artifact. I absolutely love. Love. This game from the bottom of my heart. The world, characters, the lore, everything speaks to me in a way no other game (except maybe Dark Souls and Bloodborne) does. Why I keep returning to Skyrim? Simple question, easy answer. Cause it feels like home.
thankyou for your insight, wisdom and vulnerability. We all have those places that are sacred - because they have in a way been imbued with it by us. I watched a person react to the lord of the rings movies - who laughed all the way through - there is nothing wrong with doing that - but it upset me. I realise now that they have become a sacred space for me that provided comfort when my long time partner died. You have certainly helped me to understand what was happening. Thankyou.
This is one of the most beautiful, well-thought out analyses of the medium that I have ever seen. The reference to Eliade, alongside an evident foundation in proper philosophy - is what, I think, really puts your channel in an extraordinary league regarding depth. It feels almost as if it were a confluence of literature and games, and although the latter are inherently literary, rarely are they treated in such a way. Often the genre is dismissed as vapid, infantile; which it can be, however that broadside generalisation forcefully ignores the fact that these are creations of humans, therefore endowed with at least a reach for the transcendental. As Dante so elegantly put it: "Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God’s grandchildren." Surely worthy of our full contemplation. Your videos do so excellently, thank you for them. Please excuse the heftily pretentious style.
For me, it's Spider-Man PS4. I've already completed the campaign quite a few times and I know it's not an RPG or MMO but sometimes it's just fun to swing around the city. But more than that, it has to do with feeling like I'm Peter Parker who's always been my inspiration. He truly embodies Uncle Ben's advice and no matter what happens throughout the story, he keeps doing what he's gotta do. The game truly ignites that heroic drive everyone's got within themselves and that's what keeps me going back to the game.
What an absolutely gorgeous video; not just visually, but spirituality. This truly reaches deeply into my soul, and with each and every new scene presented, I think yes, absolutely, perfectly described! Of course, I've no idea if this is good or not, but I recognized some 98% of the scenes presented. Does this mean I've been spending far too much time in Skyrim? No idea. All I know is, it's time for me once again to immerse myself in this beautiful, fascinating, horrific, gorgeous, haunting and hypnotic world.
My video game sacred space is Lordran from Dark Souls, specifically Darkroot Garden. I know Lordran technically stinks and I would never want to live there in reality, but Dark Souls always promises victory through determination, and that victory is restorative. The challenges Lordran presents me feel meaningful, far more so than many of my comparatively easier real-life challenges.
0:25 (skyrim) its cyrodiil's northenmost region Tiny mistake there, Cyrodiil is a province, Tamriel is the contient . Unless you just wanted to take a jab at stormcloak fans and said it on purpose :^)
What a beautiful experience it was to immerse in this video. The words were aligned with what I am experiencing, and I felt no resistance to the way of things. It has helped. Thank you,
A mix of the Witcher 3 and Skyrim would be amazing. If they did a prequel when Witchers were in their hayday, and you got to customise your own from scratch and make a wider variety of choices, I'd love it. Don't get me wrong, the Witcher 3 is amazing with it's choice based storytelling, but in a unique way. Geralt almost always tries to do the right thing, but the game gives you difficult choices, so you're rarely sure what the right thing is. It is masterfully suspenseful and engaging. But, being able to choose clearly morally bad options and be a villainous Witcher would be awesome.
Did this video make anyone else emotional for some reason?? I just love Skyrim so much, it’s unlike any other game to me and is certainly my favorite game ever made. There’s a handful of games that come close, but Skyrim is deeper than a game for me. I hate the fact that I’ve played it so much that I get bored anytime I go back 😢… but maybe one day I can come back to it again. Skyrim will always hold a special place in my heart 🥺🥺
100% with you. Skyrim is a game that I have personally played since 2013 I believe. Even today I still go back and play this game. Every new play-through, a new character with a new roleplaying aspects. Thanks to mods, I get to expand that aspect. Something magical about Skyrim that makes me keep coming back. This, along with Oblivion.
Warcraft does the same for me. I replay WC3 atleast once a year and watch cutscenes made in to film on youtube. I drink my tea to watching WOW zones ambience videos. Icecrown can melt me to tears. For about a decade i slept to the music of Storm Peaks. I made love to Grizzly hills music. Its not only the places that takes me. Im different, younger, full of posibilities and hopes. Fantasy gives me feeling i can still be someone that matters. But i loved WC3 long before i had existetial crisis. In fantasy i want to be lawfull good. Because irl the best i can do is chaotec evil.
After hearing that ambient music again, i feel the CALL once more I've played through this shit 5 times (3 on xbox360 and 2 on One). it's graphics on cosole are awful, the mechanics are wacky, the NPCs are weird and speak even weirder things, but NOTHING tops the sensation of joining the companions, collecting the daedric artifacts, listening to the preacher on whiterun talk about Talos, and building my own house with my lifeless wife and adopted children.
I'm studying literary theory for my university and, I have to say you have to say, you are at the forefront of videogame theoretical analysis, definitely on this platform, but even in academic circles.
First time i hear someone cite a romanian writer. I believe this new feeling i have is..... representation Edit: La 7:25 zice de Mircea Eliade și citează din "Sacrul și profanul"
Great video! Watching it got me thinking what would be your thoughts on the Pathologic series, notably the second game, as those games are more focused on the impotence and powerlessness of the main characters, albeit still transmitting a message about the drive to live and all it encopasses.
Very, very interesting! Sacred space is used in [some types of] magick to create a blank canvas on which to paint symbolic meaning (and symbolic, yet real, potential). This art aids the creative process; which is future-oriented. The process allows access to that part of ourselves which cannot know whether an idea, or experience, is internal or external; past or present. Although complete access to changing consensus reality is not always rewarded, change in one’s own conscious is frequently is. The value of changing one’s own consciousness in this way is that is a potent way to adapt to the world; to grow; to have access to first-hand experience. To me it is doing what people already do; yet in a focused and deliberate way. Dion Fortune defined magick as changing one’s own conscious in conformity to one’s own will.
Navy Seals are taught to visualize themselves into a safe, internal world they create themselves. This is used to calm nerves in combat; or in the event of becoming a prisoner of war. It provides a surrogate of experience that can comfort psychological needs in the face of suffering. Although it is a surrogate experience from one perspective, it is not a surrogate experience to the one performing the actions in private consciousness. For there is a part of ourselves which does not distinguish between consensus reality and private reality. With this part of ourselves we experience dreams as real in the moments we have them.
Love Skyrim. Your game looks beautiful. I go back to it constantly as well as Dragon Age. Two of my favorite games. Wonderful video and conversation. Love your channel. Blessings.
Even without mods I love the world building and even some of the characters. Not to mention there are channels that make characters for the sole purpose of telling their own self contain sotry and ignoring the dlc or main plot. I always had this ides of making a dark elf bloodline that span three some of the games and imagining my character telling the Dunmer in riften that he is full of shit and tells the actauk story of what happened and provides proof by showing the broken msrunes razor that he carried to make sure the mythic dawn never gets it.
My guy. You got me hooked on Mubi and god damn if it ain't the time to dive into Curiosity next. You seem to focus on analysis and reflection of modern art and philosophy - I'm curious to know if you write stories or nonfiction yourself?
There's pagans who use Valheim as a gathering place for rituals. People have been using Second Life the same way. I've built temples in Minecraft, but I don't seem to get the same feeling of sacredness. Even though I love Minecraft, it may just be too visually cartoonish.
Kingdom Hearts, Minecraft, Skyrim, Hollow Knight and even No Man’s Sky have done this for me in the past to varying degrees. This was another beautiful video. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends.😊
This was wonderful. I've been exploring the exact same thing myself, and also in regards to Skyrim. The direction you took was beautiful and eye opening. At the base of Skyrim is something intensely transcendental it's so hard to capture in words. I suggest checking out "the soul of the dark knight", it deals with Eliade and the whole crew with regards to Batman and Gotham.
The music definitely plays a big part in it. Just hearing the swelling horns and strings makes me nostalgic and remember a time I had nothing else to do than lose myself in this mystical place or explore the world with my friends.
Although people are doubting Bethesda and ES6 after Fallout 4 and 76, what they fail to realize is that The Elder Scrolls franchise is THEIR FRANCHISE. They created it and brought it to success. Fallout is a franchise they bought on a whim, and now they don’t know what to do with it. Fallout is the stepchild of the Bethesda family, while ES is the favorite child. Therefore, I am certain ES6 will show Bethesda at their best once again.
TRS VI is the only video game I am actually looking forward to. I have 100% faith that Behtesda will knock it out if the stratosphere. I am weird in that I liked Fallouy 4 more than any other Fallout game and enjoyed Fallout 76 at launch for 100 hours.
@@HelloKolla Like I said, I'm weird. I do like Fallout 4 more than New Vegas. I enjoy the game play more and the world is just more fun to wander around in compared to New Vegas. I also love the junk and settlement system.
Yeah I think we've seen that Bethesda is still capable of creating interesting open worlds that are enjoyable to explore. So hopefully ES6 will capture some of that magic.
I... actually wept during this video. I never thought about it this way, but I suppose Skyrim really is my most personal sacred space. I have never... had a video talk to me so intimiately and specifically as this one, LSOO. I cannot describe the depths of my gratitude. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Funnily enough, taking an arrow in the knee is an old Scandinavian euphemism for being married. Which is one of the reasons why many hobbyist content creators stop making videos.
My favorite part of this game is Sovngarde, without question. The first time I played through, I didn't realize I could never return after returning to earth, and I remember a feeling of intense emotional distress and regret. I restarted the game immediately for another few moments in the afterlife. I remember walking around the map for hours, drinking in every detail, reveling in the landscape and the sky, feeling somehow both small and yet so powerful. And yet, I had to leave. There was more to accomplish back on earth, achievements to earn, skills to upgrade and unlock, and people to help. I will never be a superhero or epic warrior like those in the ancient stories, but for a second I got a taste of that feeling, that responsibility, that limitless potential. Even now, sometimes, I will sit outside Whiterun for hours (In game), listening to the music and watching the cosmos pass by. It may be a collection of colors and pixels on a screen, but for me that experience is emotional, inspiring, and quite real. The places are imaginary, but their legacy and impact is one that re-emerges throughout my life.
Not to be that guy but technically, using earth could be correct. The definiton is "the land, surface of the world." So earth is correct. If he said "Earth" with a capital E, then it would be incorrect.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to this day still awakens a very nostalgic and mystical place in me. Especially the catchy tunes and navi's little voice
It helps that the game is an absolute masterpiece, easily one of best games ever made. People won't forget, it'll get remastered eventually, I'd say in under a decade.
@@JoyfulUniter It's remastered constantly with mods of all kinds, including texture and model replacements, and new renderers or parallax shaders or whatever.
The first game was outstanding (best video game of all time, in my opinion), but the second was a mess and the third was a bore (although a very visually beautiful bore).
I feel the same, all three games give me that feeling of sacred space. It's a world I've always felt connected to, especially with the friendships & journeys in all three, and exploration in inquisition.
Guys, I just installed inquisition. I find it hard to progress. I'm running around the map like a headless chicken. Somehow I try to convince myself this is how it is, being a human in such vast world would be this tiresome, especially walking or finding someone to talk to in the game. I'll keep it awhile to see how it's going to work out for me.
