the thing that bugged me the most after watching the wormhole video is actually that we never got the proper ending for the main plot line that was in it: parrot and spoke's personal relationship.
even though spoke showed that conversation from the end of wormhole, where parrot stood in front of spoke, clutching the handle of the hyperion, and said that he refuses to let people down even if it means he has to sacrifice something very important to him, this does not answer the question hanging in the air. from the point of view of the narrator, after losing op, parrot seems to lose his autonomy, both as an antagonist and, more importantly, as spoke's best friend, after spoke himself talked almost exclusively about their friendship for an hour, both as characters and, first of all, as real people.
"i didnt just exploit a game, i exploited a friendship i had built over the years.". speaking about both parrot and mapicc, spoke mentions several separate times how much it went beyond just playing on the server, that he abused their real, actual relationship in order to achieve his goal. at the same time, spoke does not tell what happened between them – both characters and people – after him receiving an op. in the jungle part, parrot literally has almost no lines – he just stares and stares and stares and stares. until the very end of the story, he follows the path that spoke paved for him, living in the conditions created by spoke.
we see only glimpses that everything is actually – at least relatively – fine. not only because parrot continues to play within the game, but also how he complains to spoke about the unfairness of using teleportation and that after the season ending he even suggests for spoke to become the new lifesteal owner. grains that do not reflect full image. was parrot horrified and shocked, was he angry, at least for a moment, when he realized how far spoke's manipulation extended, did they have to somehow solve and discuss it, or was he immediately like, "wow, you made a lot of awesome moves, there will be cool content!" and everything was fine? sure, parrot loves risk moves and adrenalin, but wasnt it too far?
can it even be "okay" if your best friend has been manipulating you for months for a personal goal? does this cross the line of what is truly acceptable, even in a lifesteal setting? even if it's all for the sake of shared content, even if the community has the right mentality, even if no real harm has been done, even if you're willing to trust a friend that he won't cross the line, does all this change the fact that it's, in general morality, just plain cruel?
although this is undoubtedly too personal to just insert into the video, it should be noted when the whole story is about abusing irl friendship. although i absolutely understand this decision, this is by no means a critical review, from the point of view of storytelling it is strikingly incorrect, as if in the middle of writing a book the writer threw out all rules.
of course, this is an important conversation to be had on the whole – with the rules never mentioned out loud, with an unspoken agreement that everyone understands what's going on here and how, and what everyone is signing up for, when the price is friendship and connection, how far is it too far? lsers are friends, to a greater or lesser extent, but it's almost inappropriate to answer "everyone has their limits" when a relationship is at stake. everyone, including spoke himself, agrees that what he did in s4 was too much, but there were many, many other moments where everything was not so clear, and, moreover, there was no discussion, even in private, which never solves the essence of the problem.
lifesteal is not unique, but it is a very rare system in how far people can be willing to go in a war against others, despite the fact that everyone is friends: most of the pre–lifesteal stories of this approach took place on public servers and against strangers, and friends' servers either remained frivolous to one degree or another, or were scripted. post-lifesteal, many servers of a similar kind have appeared, but only a small part of them are comparable in terms of the proximity of the players and the rigidity of the approach, because it is incredibly difficult to simultaneously allow yourself to get involved as deeply as possible and, at the same time, having received a knife in the back, not want to bury the traitor underground. It's about trust, and it's about content, and it's so strikingly different for different people, and there's obviously no right answer here.
when playing league of legends, one of the important skills that every player needs to develop is not to tilt. at the same time, take the game seriously, but be ready to let go of defeat, no matter how much effort you put into the game. don't go crazy when you lose a line and die ten times, and jungler yells at you as the worst possible being. it took me a few years to stop tilting, and it carried over to minecraft too – where my friends got upset, angry, and gave up, i learned to just shrug my shoulders and try again. but that didn't teach me how to deal with betrayal, even in-game, because the worst thing about betrayal is that it always comes from someone close to you. not from an accidental co-player in a match, and not as a simple accident, but as an intention to harm, even if only in the game. it is a lot to take, and the cost is too high. and, while parrot and spoke are still good friends, parrot left owner role because of the distress it gave him, so doesn't it show the presence of a real impact.
i like that we got only half-truth tho. because it is who spoke is. when he needs you to believe him, he says something actually truthful, and then – his lie and manipulation, and you eat it because believe everything to be true. even now, spoke continues to metagame. he's fine with showing that he was a dick, and he's using that to cover a part he never wants to explain. and he wouldn't.
spoke tells the truth saying he liked to do the impossible, but it is not a full answer. while s4 ending was supposed to be a relief for him, an opportunity to stop lying and being a villain, there remains something else – not only the showdown, but the guilt, the realization that you were so wrong that you hide huge chunks and you refuse to get them for another year and a half. when everything ends, when there is nowhere else to run, reflection and awareness remain. a year and a half later, from the season 6, spoke can end the video on a positive note, but for that long-time spoke, who had just released the god from his body, covered with lightning scars everywhere, absolutely not feeling like a winner, it was a bad end, and perhaps for his character, it couldn't be good.
how old was spokeishere when he did all this, 16? there is an irony that he is the worldender, the trickster, the manipulator, and he's the youngest of them all. sometimes i want to call him dumb for not being careful enough or anything else but then i do remember how he played everyone in s4. not in a big picture, but in smalltalks, toying people while they thought him to be completely harmless. spokeishere being smart is like lifesteal having its unspoken rules – you need to be too attentive to see it. often it is like a... circles on the water. you can't see a fallen pebble, but you can see the waves radiating from it. and, in the end, he is the one who did it, who succeeded, and who am i to judge him?
minecraft roleplay can do something very wrong with you, how any acting sometimes can break you apart and turn inside out. because while you are letting yourself feel like it's real, it is, at some capacity, can be real. and while it is a known factor of being an actor, it's not something you do think about when you go to play a game with your friends. sometimes it changes something very, very important in you, and sometimes you look back on that experience and realize that it hurt you. or not. everyone has their unique experiences, as always.
also, we finally found out the reason the fishing spot was so important. not only a place of friendship but also a place of the exploiting! yay!
