CW: Detailed discussions and a personal account of fear of death
Hi there. When I decided to write this blog I wasn’t intending to start off with something so personal. I wanted to ease my readership in with something a little more light-hearted to show that I am a person of charm, wit and levity. However, unfortunately, me tricking you all into thinking that I’m an urbane, happy go lucky sort of person will have to wait and it’s all the fault of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
What follows will contain minor spoilers for Emmrich Volkarin’s quest line. I’m not at the end yet and I’m not really going to discuss anything past the quest Walking The Graves. However, if you don’t want anything spoiled about Emmrich’s questline (and it is rather good in my opinion) then I release you to read this later.
Emmrich is one of your companions in the Veilguard. He’s a necromancer with a twist. Firstly and less importantly for what I’m going to talk about, he’s not cackling villain or an amoral misanthrope. He’s kind, polite and has a very strong grasp of right and wrong. Secondly, he confesses to you early on after your first meeting that he is terrified of death. Now very few people like the thought of dying but for Emmrich, it’s something more than that. I have included the video below so you can hear it in his own words but at the times where it grips him it’s an all consuming terror, something that seems to bypass and consume everything else. And when I heard this I felt seen because when I was younger and still now and again I experience the same thing.
The thought of death, the idea that my own consciousness, the thing that I experience the world through, not only could be snuffed out but inevitably would be almost debilitated me at times. It wasn’t a narcissistic worry, how could the world survive without Duncan Spark in it? It was that my mind revolted at the idea. It couldn’t comprehend it and yet it was inevitable. I don’t think that total nothingness, the complete loss of self, the complete extinction of consciousness is something that a self can truly comprehend, I’m finding it difficult to put into words right now, and yet it was something that, for long periods, was constantly on my mind. While I was writing this post a friend reminded me of Philip Larkin's haunting poem Aubade , which almost perfectly encapsulates the feelings that I'm failing to describe. Thoughts of an afterlife did not bring much comfort because then you have to grapple with the idea of eternity and that’s a whole other can of worms. Yes reader, I was very fun at parties.
Luckily I’m a bit better now. I never answered any of my questions of course and nothing actually got resolved. I’m just better at locking it away in its own special place. However, listening to Emmrich brought up these memories of feelings and also how my experience weirdly sort of mirrored that of a cosmic horror protagonist.
Ok, here me out on this one. The cosmic horror protagonist, at some point in the story usually gains insight into a truth that their brain cannot comprehend. They see the world as a different and often much more terrible place than they did before. And it’s more than that. They are often isolated in their experience. The world thinks them mad and they literally don’t have the language to explain why they’re so terrified and what they’re thinking. Because how can one put something indescribable and incomprehensible into words? They are traversing the same world as everybody else, at least until their new found knowledge takes them to strange places beyond the stars, but they view it quite differently. Their ability to connect to those around them becomes strained.
Now this is not me saying that my previous way of thinking about death is the only true way and that I’m a genius and all those people I spoke to who didn't understand are all cowards who can’t see the truth. It might all be nonsense and more importantly, thinking this way fucked me up for quite a large portion of my teens. But emotionally, I see some link here. Because, yes, everyone around me knew they were going to die. It wasn’t secret information gained from some sacred tome or eldritch whispers in the dark. But nobody seemed to react to it in quite the same way as I did. I had multiple conversations regarding it across my life and when I tried to explain my deep terror I got blank stares or, what I felt at the time, were misunderstanding platitudes. Those who empathised with my experience only seemed to experience the feeling in brief flashes that they would afterwards ignore, rather than the prolonged, paralysing terror that overcame me distressingly often. It wasn't just that the reality I was living in seemed awful and that I couldn't understand the information my brain was trying to process, it was that I felt incredibly alone. Part of me was screaming at the world to wake up, how can you see things the way I’m seeing them right now? It was only when I got older and started to study the philosophy of death at university (which also mirrors Emmrich’s path) did I start to find people across the world past and present who, like Larkin, said:” Yes, me too”.
I suppose the point of this is that, because of this experience, I’ve always had empathy for those confronted by that which cannot be comprehended and, as someone who loves cosmic horror, I think this is quite a big reason why the genre often resonates for me. I hope that by sharing this, I give people maybe a different angle or at least something to ponder. And for anyone reading this who finds something in what I've said above that reflects how they feel, while I won't pretend to know how keep the fear at bay I hope you can be assured that you are not alone.
These are just some idle thoughts I had while playing a video game I like. Thanks for reading and thanks to Emmrich for inspiring these musings. I don’t actually expect Emmrich to read this. He is a fictional character and also has more important things to do.
(40) Emmrich confesses he's terrified of death | Dragon Age The Veilguard - YouTube
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