What do you speak of when you can't think of anything you know?

You speak of what you DON'T know!


Now, I'm going to be going on a bit of a divergence for this post. In that I am not going to perform any sort of Google searches for information, just for accompanying pictures.

I swear this was the first picture when I googled the above sentence.

There was a game I played as a child- well, not a full game, it was a demo. It came on a disc with a few others when my aunt and uncle gave me and my siblings their old Playstation. That game was Spyro the Dragon.

Spryo has dubiousness of this claim. Either that or "attitude"

The game barely covered two of the levels, as I remember, which were in the fashion of those that were meant to be revisited to obtain different rewards, whatever those were. I remember playing over the demo several times over, becoming frustrated after a time of headbutts and firebreath and feeding butterflies to my dragonfly that I would get to some guy by a blimp and be unable to continue. I did this repeatedly.


The conundrum of this situation is obvious.


If I played through the demo with such vigor on several occasions, why didn't I ask my parents for the full game? Why do I, even now, not really feel any sort of compulsion to pick up the original game, or any of its sequels?


When I sit down and examine my line of thinking, trying to figure this out, I think I might know. One of the few instances where the demo's voice acting really stood out to me was a nasally plea from Spyro, asking "What about Nasty Nork?" Of course, I have no idea if that is what was said, (or if it's the right spelling), but it's what sticks out. And I think at some point...I simply felt like I was being talked down to.


Video games are usually quite black and white, especially back in the days of my childhood. There was a hero, he did good. There was a villain, he did bad. But there comes a point where the effort to portray this just reaches into the inane. I do believe "Nasty" was right there in his title. I mean, you couldn't find a more obvious villain name outside of the Pound Puppies movie.

MY NAME IS MCNASTY AND I'M THE VILLAIN OF THIS MOVIE OH YES I AM

Perhaps that's what drove me to play the demo over and over without getting the real version...it's hard to pin down. But somewhere I just really started to hate being talked down to, especially when it came to video games.


But obviously, Spyro has maintained. I can't count the number of sequels I've noticed in the stores up to this day. Which is another odd sore spot for me that, again, I feel no compulsion to soothe. I feel like when there are things that exist, popular things especially within my realm of interest, having them pass by me without my knowledge is inherently and profoundly depressing. I look back on old cartoons like Swat Kats or Gargoyles that I only saw once or twice when they were on the air and wish I had been more engaged at the time. Particularly in maintaining this blog, there are many games I wished I'd sampled back when they were new.


So why don't I feel that way about Spyro?


I honestly don't think I can say. Perhaps his mascocity simply didn't affect me. Or rather, disaffected me. I don't dislike the character, or the game franchise. I don't feel much about it at all. Maybe I'll grab the game now that I've put my thoughts down in writing, thus making myself a large contradiction, but that's the thing, I suppose. After all, what's the point of living, nay, of existing, if we don't continue on? If we don't change?

Spyro's dubiousness has increased tenfold.
That, or his "attitude" just metastasized somewhere unpleasant.