Recently, I saw some news that a game called Detention was getting a Netflix series. It’s a horror title, and I generally avoid the horror genre, so normally I wouldn’t give this a second glance. But, this title is Taiwanese, and I’m Taiwanese, so I looked further into it. I kind of regret doing so. It’s really, really depressing. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Spoilers ahead.
I have a blanket spoiler warning on the Reviews section of my site, but since we’re in the Updates section, I’m going to go ahead and say this again: spoilers ahead. A bit of background – Detention takes place in the 1960s in Taiwan. Historically, this falls in the White Terror period of Taiwanese history. In 1949, the Nationalists in China (you’ll hear them referred to as the KMT, or Kuomintang) were in a civil war with the Communists. The Nationalists lost and fled to Taiwan, where they took over the island and hoped to use it as a base to retake the mainland. The ruling KMT placed the island under martial law, fearing communist infiltration – this is the White Terror period, and it would last until 1987. From here, several people will compare the White Terror to the Red Scare going on in the United States at around the same time, except that’s not entirely accurate. The KMT were wary of communist infiltration, sure, but they were also keen on ruling the island and stamping out any perceived threat to their new rule. They killed/arrested numerous people – anyone suspected of opposing the KMT or suspected of having the potential of opposing the KMT. Imagine if, beyond what Senator McCarthy did, he took over the US government, installed military police throughout the nation, and eliminated anyone he and his party deemed a potential threat to his rule, communist or not. The White Terror was way worse than the Red Scare was, and the Red Scare wasn’t exactly a nice time. Detention takes place in a high school in rural Taiwan. As was common in Taiwan, there was a military presence in school and people were encouraged to go to the authorities with any information on potential anti-KMT activity. A second-year we’ll refer to as Wei is sitting in class when his teacher, Ms. Yin, gets a call from the KMT military instructor Bai asking about some list. Wei falls asleep and wakes up at night – the class is gone due to a typhoon about to hit. The player controls Wei as he tries to leave while wondering why nobody woke him up or something, and finds a girl sleeping in the auditorium. He wakes the girl up and they leave the school to find (1) the only bridge out of school broken and (2) the river underneath the bridge now composed of blood. They retreat back to the school, having no recourse, and Wei decides he will go to the principal’s office to use the phone, hoping to reach someone. The girl introduces herself as Ray and says she’ll wait in the classroom for him to return. This is normally where I’d call them both morons for not just, you know, going to the principal’s office together, but as we’ll see, that’s not entirely applicable here. For now, know that as soon as the player leaves the classroom, the surroundings change to some sort of static-space and the scene fades to black. The player now controls Ray, who wakes up back in the auditorium. Behind her is Wei’s corpse, hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Now it’s her turn to try to figure out what the hell is going on. She explores the school, finding clues and solving puzzles, all while something continually reminds her that she’s repressing some memory of the past. By the end of the game, the player will have found out that Ray was once a popular and talented student at school. At home, her once loving and stable father became an unstable alcoholic who spent his time cheating on his wife for reasons that are never explained. The rapidly deteriorating situation at home caused Ray no small amount of grief, and her school performance took a massive nosedive. She was referred to the school counselor, Mr. Chang. She and Mr. Chang proceeded to enter a romantic relationship, which, as you can probably tell, is all sorts of problematic. Ms. Yin, the teacher from before, discovered this, and confronted Mr. Chang for entering a relationship with a student. Ray overheard their conversation and, sometime later, Mr. Chang broke off their relationship. Overcome with rage and despair, Ray decided to find some way to get revenge on Ms. Yin. Before we continue, here are Ms. Yin’s exact words: “Did you forget about us? Remember, we were in the same boat…” This seems to suggest that she and Mr. Chang were once in a relationship, which would further cause Ray to want to get rid of her. Many people interpret her words differently: see, Ms. Yin was the head of a secret book club on campus where she and her students would study books banned by the KMT. Note that these texts weren’t necessarily pro-communist texts – these were any and all texts that might promote free thinking, which is a big no-no under a totalitarian government. The player would eventually find that Mr. Chang was the one supplying these books, so people interpret Ms. Yin’s words as referring to the book club rather than to any relationship between herself and Mr. Chang. For me…I never really could tell. To be honest, “we were in the same boat” is a confusing sentence to me. It’s in the past tense and “in the same boat” figuratively means being in the same situation, but this doesn’t line up with them talking about a currently existing book club that they’re both involved in. I actually thought it might mean that Ms. Yin and Mr. Chang were literally in the same boat that sailed from China to Taiwan during the KMT’s retreat, but if that’s true, I’m not really sure what exactly that would mean. Anyway, Ray somehow found out about this book club. Wei was a part of the club, and Ray convinced Wei to give her the club’s list of books. Ray then handed the list to Bai, causing the entire club to get arrested. Ms. Yin managed to flee the country, but Mr. Chang was executed and the students were sentenced to 15 years jail time. For all Ray knew, however, all of them had been executed – these trials (I’m using the word very loosely) weren’t all that public and/or transparent. Her guilt at causing this drove her to commit suicide by jumping off the school roof. Ever since then, her soul has been trapped in its own purgatory/hell – Ray’s ghost is repressing her personal trauma at and memory of her actions, so she’s caught in this cycle of waking up in this hellscape, re-discovering the truth, and repressing it again out of trauma and guilt. So to recap: the only real scene we’ve seen up to now is Wei being in class when Ms. Yin got called out to discuss the list. Everything else is Ray’s spirit hallucinating. This is why Wei going off alone to the principal’s office actually isn’t the two being non-savvy idiots. Before we continue, here’s one thing I’m confused on and nobody’s been able to give me an answer. The book club list is literally just a list of books. It implicates nobody. The only reason Bai knew to go after Ms. Yin was because Ray specifically told Bai that she found the list on Ms. Yin’s desk. In particular, this shows that Ray was only interested in implicating Ms. Yin – she got the list from Wei, but she didn’t actually want to get Wei in trouble. Ray also didn’t know Mr. Chang was involved – if she did, she wouldn’t have gone through with the plan as she wouldn’t want to get her love(r) in trouble. So I ask – how did Bai know whom to arrest other than Ms. Yin? Ms. Yin wouldn’t give anyone any information; furthermore, she fled the country very soon after Bai confronted her, meaning the authorities wouldn’t have had much opportunity to ask her any questions. So…this is traumatic. This is so sad on so many levels. Though a horror game, the ghosts/monsters aren’t the scary part. This is the story of a broken family, a troubled girl, an ethically dubious romance, and a tragic betrayal. These are all real, human…things, for lack of a better term. And you know the totalitarian fascist regime that allowed this to happen in the game? That was real. If you want to get into the supernatural, consider this girl reliving this torment again and again. Without pause. An old lady appears to say that Ray can’t enter the afterlife, meaning she’ll be forced to stay as this tortured soul forever. That’s dark. That’s bleak. That’s gut-wrenching. She did something terrible, yeah, but an eternity of torture? Well, there is the ending. There are 2. At the end of the game, a shadow version of Ray will appear and ask 4 questions. These 4 questions are essentially a test to see if the player understood the story. In-game, they’re asking whether Ray remembers her actions, because her repressing her memories is what is causing her to remain in the hellscape. If the player chooses the correct responses – the ones that accurately describe Ray’s actions and motivations, that means in-universe Ray is correctly remembering her actions and motivations. Otherwise, she’s not. If she doesn’t, she ends up next to this hell-river-thing where visions of Wei, Ms. Yin, and Mr. Chang inform her that she must repeat this cycle again. She appears in the auditorium, now filled with people applauding her, and she hangs herself. If she answers the 4 questions correctly, the shadow version responds, “You. Are me.” The game fades to black (without that hell-river-thing and the hanging) and we see a middle-aged man walk into the school – the real school in the present day, which is this abandoned ruin full of graffiti. This man is Wei, now out of prison on amnesty after the end of martial law. He enters the classroom in the school and sits at a desk, and Ray’s ghost appears sitting in front of him, reflecting a scene they had in their past – sitting together, talking in peace. Before we continue, I need to make a reference to “I am thou; thou art I.” If I ever get back into the JRPG mood, I want to play a Persona game. They look fun. I’ve tried to determine what my Persona would be, given how introspective I usually am, and the Internet tells me Fenrir, Daredevil, Zorro, and Takemikazuchi. What that means, if anything, I have entirely no idea. With some levity complete, let’s go back to the depression. The second ending – the “true ending,” seems to suggest that Ray finally breaks the cycle as she has come to face her past. That said, the old lady and the dialogue I mentioned appear in this ending, suggesting that even thus, Ray is still condemned to remain a wandering soul, unable to go to the afterlife. It might have to do with the fact that she killed herself – Eastern attitudes on suicide are pretty unforgiving. I’ll note that in the last sequence of the game, where Ray is following the shadow around, she also sees middle-aged, present Wei. The school also looks like it’s breaking apart. This suggests that, at this stage, Ray is close to breaking out of her hellscape – the Wei she’s seeing is the real Wei, walking around the school, so her ghost is now seeing reality and not its own tormenting illusions. That means if she answers the questions correctly, she fully breaks out, meaning the scene at the end of the true ending, with Wei and ghost-Ray sitting in front of each other, is ghost-Ray fully in the real world, able to see and interact with reality (she’s still dead, so a ghost, but at least she’s not in the illusion-hell anymore). It’s also interesting to look at Wei himself. He seems to care a lot for Ray. The movie adaptation (yes, there is one and no, I’m not watching it – like hell I’m going to subject myself to a fresh new version of this story) has him full-on crushing on her. Wei’s journal entry about getting out of jail is fairly focused on Ray, and the game sets him up as the symbol of Ray’s escape from her cycle, since he’s the playable character of the true ending. To be honest, I think the two have some sort of supernatural connection, since there are a few things Ray sees that only Wei should see and vice versa. Remember that old lady? She’s a supernatural being – you see her if you die playing as Ray. Wei shouldn’t see her. But he does, in the true ending. Ray also sees 2 scenes in the final sequence – Wei talking to Ms. Yin at the book club, where Ms. Yin reminds him to keep the club and Mr. Chang’s involvement a secret; and Wei burning the banned books along with another club member in an attempt to destroy the evidence after Ray’s betrayal. Ray didn’t witness either scene in life, but they’re all things that Wei experienced. Some of the notes Ray finds later on would only make sense if Wei left them for her, such as the newspaper clipping about Ms. Yin dying abroad and her remains being brought back to her hometown per her last wish. You also find that clipping in Wei’s notebook in the true ending, suggesting further that Wei left that for Ray’s ghost to find – this would help Ray get over her past, since remember that as far as Ray thought, she’d literally gotten all of the book club executed. I think for my own sake, I’m going to believe Wei brings Ray out of the school (it’s getting torn down anyway) and finds a way to grant her peace. When he dies, he brings her with him to the afterlife, where they can be reborn in a better life. Because this one sucked. A lot. Also? I blame Ray’s father for a lot of this. His turn to alcohol and cheating tore his family apart, sending Ray down her initial spiral, which led to her being sent to Mr. Chang, and so on. It’s also implied that Ray got the idea to turn the government on Ms. Yin from her mother, as her mother hired a PI to track her father, found he was accepting bribes, and used the information to turn him into the police as revenge for what he did to her. The game doesn’t ever tell us why Ray’s father did all this; Ray says a few times her father used to be warm and loving, so I get that my judgment is based on incomplete information, but cheating on your spouse? That’s not something I’m going to overlook. There’s more I could say about Detention, but maybe I’ll defer to some other time. This is long as it is. As part of my recent nostalgic games binge, I replayed Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, a game I first played in 2003 or so. At that time, I didn’t know of the game’s “World’s Most Difficult Trick,” an optional puzzle hidden in a volcano, but this time, I did, and I went for it. The puzzle isn’t unique to Lufia II; instead, it’s a real-life sliding block puzzle known as Klotski, Daughter-in-the-Box, Huarongdao, and a bunch of other names throughout the world. The goal is simple: get the 2x2 block to the bottom center. You can only slide blocks around – no rotating blocks, no leaving the 5x4 board area, and, of course, you can’t move blocks through one another. The 2 white squares are empty. You have 4 1x1 blocks (orange), 4 2x1 blocks (green), a 1x2 block (probably the most difficult block to get past – this is the red one), and the 2x2 block you need to get to the bottom center (blue). I don’t know about people in general, but this was hard for me. It took me ~ten hours in total. Ten. Hours. It wasn’t 10 straight hours – I have a day job I need to be working at, after all – but it’s still a long time. Encountering a problem I can’t solve generally makes me more and more determined to solve it, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. One time in grad school I decided to try to solve a biphasic theory equation, found I didn’t know how to deal with mixed boundary conditions, and proceeded to spend an entire weekend looking up resources and raiding the school library until I solved the equation. Note this wasn’t required for the class I was taking. Anyway, I digress. The first day, after about 3 hours of sliding blocks around and failing miserably, I went to sleep for the day. The next day, I spent around 2 more hours failing and decided I needed to change my approach. At that point I noted that at any given point, the number of possible moves is very small – about 2-4 or so, and one of those moves is simply the reverse of the last move you made. It adds to the frustrating aspect of the puzzle – you make a string of moves, each move the only possible move you can make, and get to a dead end, at which point you have no choice but to revert the entire string because there’s nothing else you could’ve done differently throughout. But at the same time, it means the number of possible configurations of the board is also small, meaning it’s possible to write a computer program to solve it by simply trying out every possible move until it succeeds. I thought of doing that, but decided against it since (1) I might as well spend brain power solving the puzzle directly rather than spend brain power constructing computer code to do it and (2) I’d also need to make the program spit out a string of moves leading to the solution, which I felt would be extra work. There was another way I could exploit the small number of possible moves/configurations, however, and that was to predict the end configuration of the board and move backwards from there. If I predicted an end configuration, tried to slide blocks around, and reached a dead end, I would know that configuration was impossible to reach. Otherwise, I could eventually revert the board back to its initial configuration, and if I recorded my moves in-between, I’d have a set of moves that led from end to beginning (and thus beginning to end, as all I’d need to do is slide the blocks in reverse). Because the board has a limited number of possible configurations, predicting the end configuration wouldn’t be hard and, because the game has a limited number of possible moves at any given time, I’d very quickly run into a dead end if I chose an impossible end configuration. By way of example, let’s assume that the end configuration consists of the blue block approaching the center from above as so: Slide the blue block down one and you win. But, if you try to slide blocks around from this configuration, you’ll quickly hit a dead end, meaning this cannot be the end configuration as it’s impossible to get here. After going through a small number of possible end configurations, I concluded the blue block needs to end up sliding in from the right or from the left (and those are equivalent, given the symmetry of the board – the moves would simply be mirrored) and went from there. It took another 4-5 hours, but I eventually got a set of 77 moves leading from my predicted end configuration to the initial configuration, solving the puzzle. There’s likely a more optimal solution with fewer moves, but I didn’t (and still don’t) care – I solved this puzzle FROM HADES and that’s all that matters.
Moral of the story: sliding block puzzles suck and I hope I never see one ever again. |
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