One of those strange things that occurred to me recently is how much I fucking love Scott Pilgrim. This came to me while I was running the other morning.
(I need to warn you here that some of what I write may spoil the movie for you. So if you haven’t, go watch it, then come back)
Because Scott is on a journey, too. He thought he knew what he wanted, he went through the motions, he started feeling like a victim or pawn. He got pissed off about how things were going. He struggled to get a handle on things, and in spite of all that he has gone through, ends up losing Ramona to Gideon.
So a desolate landscape evocative of a “Game Over” screen signifies the lowest point of the story, where Scott is at his weakest and most vulnerable. An Extra Life signifies a resurgence of willpower, and a Sword signifies the driving emotional force. These symbols come together to form a cohesive narrative: weakness, debilitation, doubt, followed by deep introspection, followed by a sudden realization, followed by a resurgence of will, followed by a triumphant return.
Scott felt defeated, down. Lost.
And then, in his darkest hour, he got back up.
In the end, Scott learns a lot about himself and his world, and he ends up doing something about it. He not only earns the power of love, he earns the power of self-respect. The fact that ‘earning’ something in his video game-ish world is a great metaphor for truly learning it in life is part of why I love this movie.
And I thought I was just making up bullshit but then I saw this cool article and it covers the exact same thing. That’s where I grabbed the quote in the box to the right.
Around two or three months ago, around Thanksgiving and Christmas, I don’t know I could have felt much worse. It seemed like rock bottom, I saw my version of the “Game Over” screen. It was a very dark and lonely time. No, I didn’t get an extra life symbol, and didn’t acquire a flaming sword (that would have been really cool, though). I learned that good friends are hard to find. I figured out which friends I could ultimately lean on and was very surprised. It wasn’t like I expected, but I did finally (to keep with my bad analogy) ‘level up.’
That’s behind me, now. I still have challenges, I still need to defeat my NegaScott. I’m looking ahead and hoping to level up again. Maybe it’s nearing the time for my triumphant return.
