I am watching Severance and playing Hades 2 lately, and I noticed that ‘respawn’ as a plot device has really increased in last few years.
It’s not just respawn, but it’s the mechanism where each spawn helps push the narrative further.
The Good Place was similar. Mickey 17 seems to be doing the same thing from what I can tell in the trailer.
Am I just cherry picking or is this a real trend? And does this reflect some other underlying phenomenon?
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You might be cherry picking. I think what’s happening here is more, this is a new kind of plot. I don’t think it’s dramatically different from what has come before, but stuff like timeloops and respawns are a really recent concept compared to something like say, reincarnation. So even though it’s not actually overrepresented, it feels more represented, because it’s recently gone from 0% of all stories to 2% of all stories.
Probably makes sense yeah.
It’s groundhog day with a different coat of paint
Respawning has almost always been a thing in video games. A lot of games just started to explain the mechanic via in-world lore after Dark Souls’ success and it’s pretty low-hanging fruit to duplicate.
Aside from that Tom Cruise movie where he goes back in time after he dies, I can’t think of many films that have used this concept.
Yes but even in most video games, when you respawn you don’t have to start from the beginning each time. You start from where you die or a save point.
I guess what I am noticing in these shows is that you die or go out and then come back again and do the same things again. And it loops ad finitum.
Yes but even in most video games, when you respawn you don’t have to start from the beginning each time. You start from where you die or a save point.
You’re right; most games are like that. But that is one of the defining features of the roguelike genre. And even a lot of those don’t use “respawning” the way others do. They are intended to convey that you are an entirely new adventurer because your last one died. Hell, a lot of 'em even allow you to encounter the corpses of your previously fallen characters. Like Pixel Dungeons or Project Zomboid.
I’d like to see some shows that do it. I hadn’t heard of Severance, so I’ll probably check it out just because I do find it an interesting concept.
You have me thinking about the time in South Park where Satan killed Saddam Hussein in hell. He comes right back, “where was I going to go, Detroit?”
What respawn happened in Severance? I can’t think of anyone that died and came back.
Also the episode explaining Kenny’s respawning.
Not really death but going in and out of Lumen kind of resets things and they have to figure their way out. It seems similar.
Ah, gotcha.
I feel like the respawn mechanic in media is often used for social commentary about capital treating labor as a disposable commodity. I think severance is definitely a commentary on corporate life, but also on the nature of consciousness and identity.
We have a generation of filmmakers that grew up playing video games, as has much of their audience, so I think that’s why it’s become such a trope lately.
Yeah i was wondering if these shows are channeling some kind of anxieties around futility/hopelessness of the system.
Also Mickey 17 is by Bong Joon Ho, so the class system analogy makes sense too.
