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Is Destiny an Allegory for Surviving Depression?

Is Destiny an Allegory for Surviving Depression?

Alright, I’m going to do something really really goofy here. Now that Destiny is out and everyone is having fun blasting their way across the cosmos, I’m going to compare the story of Destiny to something important to me, the struggle against depression. I’m not saying that Bungie designed the game to be an allegory for surviving depression, nor am I saying that everyone else will or should look at it this way. However, I’m going to channel the spirit of Roland Barthes and seriously lean on the Death of the Author here, to show you what I personally see in Destiny ’s plot.

At the beginning of Destiny ’s plot, humanity has nowhere to go. They are stuck on their planet with limited technology and ability to expand. Their world and capability is small, and they can only make small reaches into worlds beyond their own. I look at this as the basic state of depression, a feeling that you have no options and nowhere to go, yet constantly looking to somehow make that state go away.

Then, we end up finding the Traveler. The Traveler is a giant space sphere that basically holds all the answers. It fixes things for us. It terraforms planets and bestows upon us super human abilities. It gives us a place to go. It takes us out of the depression. The Traveler is mysterious. Some people call it a deity, or an powerful sentient being, or an alien ship, or simply some sort of advanced technology, but one thing is for sure, the Traveler saved us. I find the traveler to be symbolic of the things people use to get out of depression. Friends, family, therapy, God, medication, they are all encapsulated in the theories of what the Traveler is.

The Traveler ushers in a Golden Age for humanity. It allows humanity to expand far beyond just Earth. But something comes to ruin it all, an ancient primordial Darkness that wants to undo all that the Traveler has done.

This, strangely enough, was what made me start looking at Destiny in the frame of depression. The idea of a darkness that stays with you, no matter how good you are doing, is common in depressed people. Many times depressives will have huge breakthroughs with therapy and medicine, but that never cures them. The Darkness is always there, ready to take things back. It wants nothing more than to destroy you, to take away everything that you hold dear.

And this, I think, is what is so inspiring when you look at Destiny through the frame of depression. The Darkness is being combated, but not by the Traveler. It’s being combated by you. The traveler left some remnants behind to help you out, and you use those remnants, its tiny floating cores, your powers, and such, to fight back against the Darkness. But the Traveler isn’t doing the fighting for you. You are fighting. Even if you eventually wake the Traveler again, it is an action taken by you.

That, is a key message when treating depression. People can help you, people can take the journey with you, therapy and medicine can make you better, and you should seek out treatment if you think it works for you, but in the end it’s your strength that lets you survive. It’s your strength that made you seek help, and it’s your strength that fights back the darkness.

Is Destiny an Allegory for Surviving Depression?

There are a lot of other interesting parallels I see as well. The way multiplayer springs on you at any moment to help you take on challenges can be symbolic of your support group of family and friends coming to you in times of need, for example. Of course, as I said before I am not saying this is the “right” way to read the plot, or that Bungie intended for the plot to be read it, but it’s how I read it, and to me it’s inspiring.

What about you? How do you read Destiny ’s plot?

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