what is adens world view? are they a nihilist? or possibly a misanthropist???
a character analysis ^_^
While re-reading Aden’s dialogue, I was thinking about how they see the world. It’s obvious to anyone that plays the game that Aden definitely does not have a very positive view. In this analysis, I will be exploring that in more detail!
First, let’s look at this piece of dialogue from Aden:
“We are terrified of death. We are terrified of suffering. But suffering is inherently tied to the human existence. Our souls are weighed down by our bodies of flesh and limited minds. As long as you are human, you will suffer.”
While looking over that piece of dialogue, the first thing that came to my mind was ‘nihilism’. According to Wikipedia, ‘Nihilism is a family of philosophical views that question the existence of any objectively meaningful purpose, moral value, truth, or knowledge.’
Now, with Aden’s dialogue, I just picked out the specific section of it that reminded me of nihilism, however, the full quote (in addition to other pieces of dialogue from them) don’t fully hint towards this conclusion. So, let’s look at another possibility!
My next thought on Aden was that maybe they were a misanthropist. Misanthropy is described as ‘hatred or mistrust to mankind’.
“You can transcend humanity! You don’t have to think about anything anymore! You don’t have to suffer anymore! No more worries, no more tears!”
Now with this quote, and the previous one, it’s pretty clear by now that Aden sees suffering as a part of the human experience. Although, this quote doesn’t exactly prove the misanthropy theory, since they seem to more dislike the idea of being human (one of the reasons possibly being to do with their associations with humanity and suffering), rather than the idea of humans.
Another thing that led me to consider the ‘misanthropy’ route, was the interaction between Aden and Madeleine in the ending where Madeleine chooses to stay, and destroy the building. More specifically, where Aden says that ‘someone like [Eileen] can’t survive in the outside world’, I felt, at the time, that this could suggest Aden possibly being a misanthropist (more specifically with the ‘mistrust’ part of the definition). Although, it seems more like Aden just really cares about Eileen and doesn’t want her to suffer. Aden views humanity in a very negative light as well, so these quotes could honestly be perceived either way. I, personally, see it as a combination of both.
