Xenogears - A Deconstruction?

[Forsaken Lover]

So Deconstructing from what I can tell tends to be what artsy-fartsy writers try to accomplish. Alan Moore with Watchmen, Hideo Kojima with MGS2 and so-on.

One particular example that I was discussing elsewhere was Neon Genesis Evangelion. I was ranting about how Xenogears is often (negatively) compared to EVA and how the two aren't actually all that similar. A reply said that Xenogears, like Eva, was a deconstruction, and I don't see it.

If you haven't seen NGE, it's a huge middlefinger to typical mecha anime tropes. Xenogears though, while a very ambitious and "artsy-fartsy" project in its own right, seemed to be telling a very straightforward story. By "straightforward" I just mean that Takahashi did not appear to me to be setting out to take a concept and pull it apart to make a bold statement. He was just telling a very detailed, very well-thought out story.

Fei is not a deconstruction of a protagonist like Shinji was, at least to my mind. Moreover, while Eva is saying SMURF YOU to other mecha, Xenogears is in many ways a love letter to mecha. Takahashi and Saga love them some robots and there are so, so many references to Voltron and Macross and The Guyver and other obscure mecha anime I don't even know about.

So...what do you all think? Was Xenogears trying to "Deconstruct" something or was it just telling a really big, really layered story?

[Fynn]

Deconstructions are awesome. They don't all mean "fuck you" to the target genre. It's just a post-modern trope used to take certain aspects we have come to understand as obvious apart and showcase some of its weaknesses, how it can be done differently, etc. Basically, it's a play on expectations and how they are valid (or invalid) in a more realistic situation.

That said, Xenogears doesn't really carry many deconstructive elements, to me. Although wait, there is at least one. Ramsus. He kind of deconstructs the typical Dragon Ascendant/Rival/Big Bad of the PSX era. He's kind of built up as this Sephiroth-type character throughout the game, having a link to the main character, as well as a personal vendetta. In the end, he gets offed quite unceremoniously. We see how small he is, how unimportant in the grand scheme of things. In that, I think he might be a deconstruction of that kind of character.

[Bolivar]

I think Xenogears was rather trying to stay true to the form and push the boundaries to see how far it can really go, rather than self-awaredly critique it. Hundreds of characters, thousands of years of back story, layers of betrayals, puppets of other puppets, Xenogears had it all and tried to approach it with an erudite seriousness, like, if your going to make RPGs, you better bring your A game. But with the visuals, the music and the storytelling, it was very much the embodiment of everything PlayStation JRPGs were going for in the post-SNES era.

[Wolf Kanno]

I am going to echo other people have said and agree that Xenogears is not really a deconstruction on par with something like Neon Genesis Evangelion. The only two elements Gears really does differently from most RPGs of it's time is portraying Fei in a more human light by making him anything but ideal, and making the villains far more sympathetic than is usually common for RPGs. Of anything, Xenogears is more of a Reconstruction of the Giant Robot genre as Fei has more in common with characters like Amuro Rei but like Shinji, he is given very good justification for not wanting to pilot a giant robot beyond informed values like Amuro.

The only real deconstruction I could see for the game is maybe being a deconstruction of the Amnesia Plot, unlike most recipients of amnesia, Fei actually get's his in a bit more realistic way (psychological trauma) whereas most cases of amnesia in the series is due to magic or getting knocked on the head but then miraculously cure themselves with no real treatment. Instead Fei lost his memories of his own volition to save himself from the trauma and that is actually a real phenomena in Psychology where people can consciously suppress their memories and personalities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state). whereas head-trauma caused amnesia tends to make the character suffer from brain-damage function which RPGs and media rarely go into cause it's jut a plot device. Even then it is more of real take on the subject as opposed to a direct deconstruction.

I think the comparison with Eva is largely due to both games being about reluctant heroes with psychological trauma, piloting god-like Giant Robots, and trying to stop an ancient conspiracy with heavy handed religious concepts. The issue here comes down to intention, and that is why one if a deconstruction while the other isn't. Eva deconstructs the giant robot genre by showing you what a more disturbing but probably true-to-life take on the whole "boy and his daddy's robot" plot whereas Gear plays it straight and just happens to exist in a world that falls into less idealistic territory than the genre is known for.

[Mercen-X]

The way I see deconstructions is that they basically take tropes and invert or subvert them so that the audience, expecting one thing, is surprised to the point that their view of the topic changes. This can often be the end goal but is not a necessary intent. The Princess series by Jim C Hines can at once be considered a deconstruction as well as a hearkening back to the original tales of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.

I don't know about Gears because I still haven't been able to obtain a copy, but I can say I agree with Wolf in that there's not much deconstruction in it. The amnesia bit would have been more deconstructive if Fei had really lost his memory due to cranial trauma rather than the psychological but then went further into the consequences of his resulting brain damage with issues such as speech impediments, memory lapses, vision impairment, hearing loss, involuntary muscle movement or the inability to use a limb. It's very uncommon to have a main character with even ONE of those problems.

[Fynn]

The way I see deconstructions is that they basically take tropes and invert or subvert them so that the audience, expecting one thing, is surprised to the point that their view of the topic changes. This can often be the end goal but is not a necessary intent. The Princess series by Jim C Hines can at once be considered a deconstruction as well as a hearkening back to the original tales of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.

I don't know about Gears because I still haven't been able to obtain a copy, but I can say I agree with Wolf in that there's not much deconstruction in it. The amnesia bit would have been more deconstructive if Fei had really lost his memory due to cranial trauma rather than the psychological but then went further into the consequences of his resulting brain damage with issues such as speech impediments, memory lapses, vision impairment, hearing loss, involuntary muscle movement or the inability to use a limb. It's very uncommon to have a main character with even ONE of those problems.

There's more than one way to go about a deconstruction. That bit is still pretty deconstructive, I think.