Elliot Kessler

We live in a fallen world. There’s no question about it. People have evil desires, and we often succumb to those desires. Fallen kingdoms are used in fiction often. Think of Hollownest from the game “Hollow Knight,” or even the world of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” better known as “Blade Runner” thanks to the movie adaptations. Even I’m using the fallen kingdom trope in my next novel. But what is it which makes the fallen kingdom trope so tragically beautiful?

If you have ever played “Hollow Knight,” then, first off, you understand how incredibly difficult that game can be, and second, you know how beautiful and sad the world of that game is. The old city of Hollownest is a beautiful place, especially Greenpath and the City of Tears. But it’s become empty and infected by a strange plague that changes people into monsters. Despite its beauty, the world is sad and depressing. I mean, it’s right there in the name of the City of Tears. Everything has come to ruin, and it feels sad. Playing through the game, I felt the kingdom’s sadness, yet the scale and beauty were still there to inspire awe. This was reflected beautifully in the game’s soundtrack, which also was beautiful yet sad. I love the soundtrack of the game. You don’t even need to play the game to feel the emotions the world and the game conveys. You simply have to put in some earbuds or connect to your speaker and play this tragically beautiful soundtrack. Everything in this world, from the characters to the settings to the music, plays into that theme of tragically beautiful.

“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” is a very strange and long title for an incredible and short book. Those of you that have watched the films probably already know the story. Rick Deckard, officially sanctioned bounty hunter (blade runner in the movies), is sent on a task to “retire” some androids that escaped from Mars, but the androids act just like people. During the story, Deckard begins to question his humanity and wonders if the androids are alive or not. I love this book. It goes back to the roots of sci-fi, using the same themes Mary Shelley used for her novel “Frankenstein,” such as “What does it mean to be human?” and “Can we really create life?” It is a very interesting book, and this, along with several other Philip K. Dick works, eventually became the foundation for the cyberpunk genre. If you have seen the world of any sort of cyberpunk film or game, or book, you might understand where I’m going with this. Cyberpunk is a dystopian genre set in a futuristic city, with some of the tropes being incredibly large gaps in financial classes (the poor are very poor, and the rich are very rich), an evil megacorporation intent on making as much money as possible no matter who they have to hurt or kill to do it, and big, bright advertisements spread all over the city. Cyberpunk cities are the fallen kingdoms of the future. They use the fallen kingdom trope differently than most other sci-fi or fantasy stories, and I think it’s interesting. It can be beautiful, yes, but the amount of crime and greed and lust that fills those cities is more tragic than beautiful. It can be interesting to read these old novels of broken down, wretched cities and see the parallels with our world today. Cyberpunk stories are warnings, and I love that.

So, we’ve discussed two fallen kingdoms: Hollownest and any cyberpunk city. But, we still haven’t found an answer to the question I asked in the beginning. What makes fallen kingdoms tragically beautiful? In short, they reflect our current world and warn us of what our current world could become. It’s not just a beautiful and interesting world with a sad story. It’s a warning of what we might become, like a Shakspearian tragedy. The world I’ve created using the fallen kingdom trope is fallen because it’s full of people who want more, and nothing is ever enough. There’s inequality, sure, and these people aren’t treated fairly, but both sides of the conflict are greedy, and they always want more. That’s what I see in the world today. Everyone wants more, including me. Nothing is ever enough for us, and what we need to do is stop and be grateful for everything we have. We are all blessed in some way, not cursed. We live in a fallen world, but we can make the best of it.