Dialogue Paper ~ Dungeons and Dialecticians

The GB IV Semi-Annual Game Night Proudly Presents:

D&D ~ Dungeons and Dialecticians

SCENE

The curtain opens on a large, circular, dark mahogany table in the corner of a rather cozy-looking early 20th-century pub lounge. The pub is mostly unoccupied except for a few patrons milling around, and soft, almost cheerful yellow light shines down in a half-hearted attempt at a spotlight on the occupants of the table. These occupants are four scholarly-looking men—one British, one American, one Russian, and one Prussian—and a nondescript Dungeon Master (DM). The four men sit in a crescent around one side of the table with the DM in the middle of the opposite side, preparing his notes to begin the game.

DM: Alright everyone, are we about ready to start?

[The man closest to the DM’s right snorts, and responds in a disparaging tone.]

NIETZSCHE: I still can’t believe I got stuck playing with you three. [He eyes the other men on his side of the table with disdain.] It would have been so much better if I could have played with Freud or Hume. At least they have some sense of good philosophy…

[The man on the opposite side of the crescent looks at him with an amused smile and adjusts his pipe before responding lightly.]

TOLKIEN: Oh, come now Friedrich, there’s no need to abandon manners this early in the evening. The game hasn’t even begun! I personally would prefer if my dear friend Lewis had been able to attend, but you don’t hear me complaining.

[The American next to him laughs softly to himself and then looks inquiringly at the DM.]

BRADBURY: Speaking of absent parties, I was under the impression that Sartre would be joining us.

DM [looking uncomfortable]: Mr. Sartre was... unable to make it. I believe he said something about the debate that he knew would arise with this party if the game was attempted… and commented that trying to play with all of you will undoubtedly provide a perfect demonstration of the concluding assertion of his No Exit… [A silence around the table for a few moments.] Let’s just go ahead and start. Everyone go around, describe your character, and explain why you picked them. We’ll start with you, Mr. Nietzsche.

NIETZSCHE: Fine! I guess I’ll go. Well, as has been argued quite incontrovertibly in my The Anti-Christ, the most important thing in life, indeed the true manifestation of good and life itself, is “All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man” (Nietzsche 127). In addition to this, true happiness lies in “The feeling that power increases — that a resistance is overcome” (Nietzsche 127). This happiness is “Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but proficiency… free of moralic acid” (Nietzsche 128). So, with all these truths in mind, I have attempted to model my character after these ideas to create the ideal man, one that is free from the most harmful of vices, “active sympathy” (Nietzsche 128). My character seeks his own interest, follows his instincts (Nietzsche 129), and pursues “the will to power” (Nietzsche 129) in all endeavors, therefore making him a “higher type” (Nietzsche 128).

DM: Okay… what is your character’s race?

NIETZSCHE: Well, obviously, my first choice was to make him one of the “Hyperboreans” (Nietzsche 131), but, unfortunately and quite stupidly, that race is not on the list of available races for this game. So I had to go with the closest second I could find, a Half-Orc…

[Tolkien chuckles softly across the table and blows a smoke-ring.]

NIETZSCHE: Oh, you find that funny, do you, myth-weaver?

TOLKIEN: “Dear me!” (Tolkien, Hobbit 298). You do like your temper, don’t you? There’s no need for name-calling (although, I rather like that description). I simply disagree with your view of morality and supreme man. In fact, the type of creature you describe (indeed, the race you chose) is depicted in my novels as the enemy of all that is human and the opposite direction from true progress, akin to goblins. This “will to power” at the expense of others that you describe is merely the succumbing of the will to dark desire, pride, and jealousy. I depict this struggle in my creation myth, “Ainulindale,” when Melkor, chief among the Ainur, decides to sing his part of the theme of creation against the design of Illuvatar “to increase the power and glory of the part assigned to himself” (Tolkien, “Ainulindale” 4). Melkor “contended with” (Tolkien, “Ainulindale” 5) Illuvatar’s masterful theme, but Illuvatar overcomes him and informs him that he is Illuvatar, and that no theme can exist that does not have its “uttermost source” in him (Tolkien, “Ainulindale” 6). If this is the case, then Illuvatar ultimately decides the question of morality in Arda, much like the God of the Christians ultimately decides morality in this world.

NIETZSCHE [slamming his fist on the table]: “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point” (Nietzsche 137)! God is an “imaginary cause,” so your morality is an “imaginary effect” (Nietzsche 137)!

TOLKIEN: I believe “Ainulindale” answers that assertion as well when Illuvatar tells Melkor that anyone who attempts to defy or deny him “shall prove but [his] instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which [they themselves] hath not imagined” (Tolkien, “Ainulindale” 6). But, since I am already answering, I may as well give my character. I believe that, instead of raw power, it is more subtle qualities that create a truly worthy hero, qualities of hidden courage and inner strength, wit, humor, and compassion. [Nietzsche snorts derisively across the table. Tolkien continues unphased.] Furthermore, I believe that these characteristics can be found in most average chaps, given the proper push. So, naturally, for my character’s race, I chose a hobbit or, if you will, a Halfling, much the same as my dear old gent Bilbo in my novel, The Hobbit. He serves as a good example of an “everyman,” and, like the average person, “there is always more about [him] than anyone expects!” (Tolkien, Hobbit 295).

DM: Okay, very nice! So, Nietzsche is a Half-Orc and Tolkien is a Halfling [Nietzsche rolls his eyes]. Bradbury, what about you?

BRADBURY [setting down the book he had been perusing during the preceding conversation]: Well, to an extent, my reasoning kind of follows a similar line of thought to Tolkien’s [Nietzsche glares at him]. For my character’s race, I have selected a regular human. If you care to know the rationale behind it, I draw from themes I explore more fully in my American dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. My main character, Montag, lives in a numb society with constant distraction, no genuine interaction or feeling, and no avenue or outlet for deep thought, until he begins to wake up and realize that this excessively modern, sterile existence is not real life. Books are outlawed, and without the prior collective experience of mankind to learn from and to “stitch the patches of the universe together” (Bradbury 79) for them, they cannot come to truly live. Only when he starts reading and learning and thinking does he begin to rediscover self-awareness and “life under the glass” (Bradbury 79). I explain all this to say that the reason I have chosen a regular human is because I believe that nothing compares with the genuine human experience, the capacity man has to live and to be human and to exist in his own state of humanity. One must contemplate the matters of the humane for it to be worth it, but when one truly “talk[s] the meaning of things” and “[knows they’re] alive” (Bradbury 71), I am hard pressed to think of another state I would prefer.

TOLKIEN: Well said, my good sir.

DM: Okay, very nice! [Turns toward the final member of the party with some reluctance.] I guess… I guess that means it’s your turn… er… Mr. Dostoevsky.

DOSTOEVSKY [overly enthusiastic, but also in a paradoxically calm way]: Finally! Well, gentlemen, I’m excited to be able to share my character with you and to have my turn now. It was very interesting sitting and listening to all of your reasonings, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! However, I must confess, gentlemen, that “it was just too boring to sit there with folded arms” (Dostoevsky 16). Too boring indeed! “I did suffer, gentlemen, I assure you… and all that from boredom, gentlemen, all from boredom, crushed by inertia” (Dostoevsky 17)! [An uncomfortable silence for a few moments.] I jest, gentlemen, I jest. “A bad witticism, but I won’t” take it back, “I purposely won’t” take it back! (Dostoevsky 4). Concerning my character, I feel I must side with Nietzsche on his side of the debate. The morality the rest of you propose will act merely as a hindrance. If I subscribe, it will tell me the limits of what I can and can’t do, what I can and can’t want; it will confine me to a little table! “Who wants to want according to a little table?” (Dostoevsky 26). I want to be more than human! This will to power seems most reasonable because, after all, “Man needs only independent wanting, whatever this independence may cost and wherever it may lead” (Dostoevsky 26). If power is what I want, then it is what I want, and that is the most important thing to me, my “most profitable profit” (Dostoevsky 25). But wait. What if power is not what I want? Individuality is the most profitable thing, so if I do not desire power, my individual wanting is more important! But I cannot leave his side, I have already committed! And it suits me, for after all, “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man” (Dostoevsky 3). But wait, gentlemen, there’s something you should know. “I am joking, of course, and I myself know that I am not joking very successfully, but one really cannot take everything as a joke. Maybe I’m grinding my teeth as I joke” (Dostoevsky 32). For, reasonably, perhaps I should be content to be merely human. After all, I am a human, and more than that, I am self-conscious. Extremely conscious. “Overly conscious” (Dostoevsky 6). Ordinary humans have “a half, a quarter of the portion that falls to” me (Dostoevsky 6). Not only that, I am extremely conscious of the “beautiful and lofty” (Dostoevsky 7). Of course! It all adds up! I must pick a human, that is the race I am! Nothing else will suffice! I must pick a human “because… Eh!” (Dostoevsky 6). It does not really matter whether I am human or not. All this reasoning is tiresome, gentlemen. “You see: reason, gentlemen, is a fine thing… but reason is only reason and satisfies only man’s reasoning capacity, while wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life” (Dostoevsky 28). And furthermore, “wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely and stubbornly at odds with reason” (Dostoevsky 29), and this is a good thing! So, what do I want, you ask? Well gentlemen… but wait! There is one thing more I must tell you. I lied about myself when I said I was a wicked man. “I was conscious every moment of so very many elements in myself most opposite to that” (Dostoevsky 5). Truthfully, I was never able to become wicked, so I was never able to become more or less than a human anyways. “I lied out of wickedness” (Dostoevsky 4). But wait… if I lied out of wickedness, perhaps I am wicked? In that case, I lied just then. Well, in any case gentlemen, “I’m a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler” (Dostoevsky 18). And, in addition, “I think my liver hurts…” (Dostoevsky 3).

[Everyone at the table stares at Dostoevsky. Everyone in the pub stares at Dostoevsky. Nietzsche looks as if he may have found something worse than Christianity. The DM shakes himself, looks around, and clears his throat uncomfortably.]

DM: Okay… right then. Well… we can just keep going with the game and you can let me know what your race is when you decide. [He turns to look at everyone else. They all shake themselves out of it.] Okay everyone… now you need to go around and introduce your character’s class, background, and name. Nietzsche, let’s start with you…

CURTAIN