Confessions of a Quirky Christian Artist

The year: 2012. A game called Guild Wars 2 releases. I’m on the front lines, building content for the game. As an MMO, it requires constant work to keep it running and updated with new stuff. It’s like if Disneyland had to add a new ride or themed section every couple months. The first stuff we put out was Halloween content. Several new areas to explore, fight in, and climb up. I love jumping on stuff, both in real life and games, so naturally I tend to make jumping challenges. (Having worked on Guild Wars 1 for many years was frustrating because it had no jumping!) This Halloween event had so much stuff in it, I thought making one little part of it dedicated to a horror themed jumping challenge would be great. Some players disagreed. I ended up conversing with one of them on a YouTube video comment section.   While the player started out incredibly hostile, by the end of the exchange they had cooled down and apologized. They didn’t really change their mind about my design decisio

Apparently this is my life now. Posting countless think pieces about a movie that I only kinda like. Why do I do this? Because the controversy that emerged around this film provides a fascinating case study of this moment in culture. And how the chips fall will have a huge impact on my future goals and ambitions. For context, you can see my grand scheme here, https://breathoflifeart.com/works/tft-concept/ or for the TL:DR version: I want to create a media empire that makes the world more loving with stories. What I see happening in the controversy over The Last Jedi is a conflict between two impulses in culture. One is tradition/privilege/entitlement. The other is expanded empathy/compassion. Here’s your giant dumb caveat because at this point in history it’s necessary: >>>>NOT EVERYONE WHO DISLIKES THIS MOVIE DISLIKES IT BECAUSE THEY ARE ENTITLED, PRIVILEGED TRADITIONALISTS WHO LACK EMPATHY AND COMPASSION. <<<< In fact, let me just get this out