Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Unfinished Swan

I want to stop for a bit and talk about a game company that had become very endeared to me over the last 5 years. The company in question is called Giant Sparrow. Since 2012, they have produced a total of 2 video games, both of which have filled me with a lot of happiness, and perhaps a bit of sadness too. All good, by the way.

The name of these two games are "The Unfinished Swan" and "What Remains of Edith Finch." This week, we are going to talk about these two games in that order.

One thing to note about Giant Sparrow games is they all seem to have stories hovering around death. Yet there is still so much life there. They are not so much about death, but the life lived and what is left behind. "The Unfinished Swan" introduces a boy named Monroe right after the death of his mother. The only thing left behind after her passing is a painting she made of an unfinished swan, which was his favorite of all her paintings.

From there, he is drawn into a fairy tale world literally based on an unfinished work of art. He has to use droplets of ink and water in order to make the strange world around him make sense. And from this odd presentation, we find the narrative of a king who created the world around him to suit himself. The only problem was that the people living there did not have his vision and tended to complain and revolt.

The king does occasionally try to make corrections to his artistic world to appease them, but it seems that there are always complaints. Ultimately, he is forced into various creative slumps that lead to darkness and a little bit of danger and chaos. Through all this Monroe experiences the kings trials through the artistic progression of the world he painted for himself.

The thing that fascinated me about the king is when I realized that this is not just some fairy tale character. He is a real person who literally escaped into his own imagination. He's a real person living within a world that he personally created. And even better... he is still working on it while there. How was it his fault that the people living there wouldn't agree with him? I wonder if that's something God has to put up with often. Nevertheless, the king learns that he can't satisfy everyone and decides to move on.

When an artist dies or retires, something very odd happens. He still somehow exists. Maybe not him particularly. The art tends to take on a personality of its own as it seeps into the minds of those who view it. It can even inspire others to continue creating. I'm surprised people don't link artistic endeavors with godhood more often. Ask anyone who creates, and see if they don't want to be apart of their creation. If they say no, they are probably lying or don't care about what they are making in the first place.

Artists are the true world-builders. They create things that would never exist if they had not put brush to canvas. "The Unfinished Swan" is a perfect example of the effect loving artists have on us. All they really want is to escape from this boring world by creating something more interesting... something we never had until they stepped in. This is a video game about someone who finally managed to escape.

But who was the king? Where did he come from? That question was left unanswered in the game. But in 2017, a new game by Giant Sparrow would finally answer that question. And it would be one of the strangest journey's any video game would ever put me through.

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