Coming Home, Setting Sail: An Analysis Of Bastion

I don’t plan to waste much of your time. I merely want to share the game that has stolen my heart and mind the past few days. A game so beautiful and poignant it manages to invade my thoughts about the reality around me. This is my first time doing this type of thing. Analyzing a work of art for my own interest and not for some half-assed English class. But hopefully I do alright. Hopefully you’ll be able to see the same beauty I saw when I first played Bastion.

When I first ventured into Caelondia, I didn’t know what to expect. All I really knew about the game called Bastion was that it was an action RPG that happened to be an indie title. A friend of mine raved about it months prior to when I actually got it. He was entranced by its narrative complexity and its encapsulating perspective. In fact, that same friend purchased the game at full price with the soundtrack for me for my birthday. So of course I was obligated to play it. A few weeks later, I started my journey.

The world attracted me from the very moment I began to play. It was only a short half-hour session, but within that little time I completed the game’s “prologue” of sorts and became very interested by the unique style the game possessed. The entire land of the world did not span in front of my eyes at once; rather, the land unfolds piece by piece accordingly throughout a variety of pathways. Most leads to dead ends, ones that either holds a small reward for the extra time taken to explore it or simply… nothing. Barren nothingness. But there was always a path to be forged ahead. And there were always enemies regardless of which paths I decided to take. Obstacles to be taken care of.

But there was always a path to be forged ahead. I could count on that.

I’d say that most of us humans depict the end of the world as something brought about by humanity’s own devices or contributions. War. Maybe environmental disasters fueled by our own misgivings and shortcomings. Bastion is about a world of dystopia and solitude, a place that has already faced destruction at the hands of its own inhabitants. But then that beckons the question… What happens after that? What happens after we all destroy ourselves and our home? Can all of us really be snuffed out for good? And if we happen to be the only ones left… then what? Do we dare hope to rebuild the home we lost in the image of old, or do we try to forge a new world by going upon a different path? Or is even that futile?

At the center of Bastion, you roam throughout the vacant, desolate land, looking over a home you both knew and never knew. The Kid – the main character – he knew it all before the Calamity struck, the things that caused the end of their world. He’s seen most of the land beforehand by working himself to death for his mother. However, you as the player… You don’t know this land at all. The only time you ever witness it is at its destruction… its end. Thus, two realities are encountered in Bastion from the start… The reality the Kid knows and the reality the player knows. The Kid’s known this place before and after. Meanwhile, you only know the after…

However, there are more realities that Bastion presents in its introspective narrative. Namely, the whole story is told through the perspective of an outside party… Namely, an old man – a Stranger – named Rucks. Bastion is nothing more than a game told from a second person’s perspective… You only know Rucks’s perspective and his views. You only learn of the City and the Wild to the East of it, the Caelondians and the Ura… From the feeble words of an old man who has seen and learned too much about life. A third reality… But is the reality Rucks sees the same as the real nature of Caelondia? Is it the same as the one the Kid sees? And is it anywhere close to what the player sees of the land? Immediately, you’re forced into taking the words of an old man for the truth… You get his insight and only the others’ if he learns of it secondhand.

The Bastion is the safe haven of the discarded world, the Promised Land where a new future – a new world – is offered to the few survivors of the land. At the beginning of the game, it’s only you and the old man… the man whose name you don’t even learn until the discovery of a third survivor, a man of the Ura race named Zulf. You meet him and a Caelondia-born Ura named Zia in your quest to bring the Bastion to life as a new world. As the game progresses, you journey from almost complete solitude… To battling an entire tribe of Ura at the end of the game. After all, the Calamity was brought about by Caelondia… As a way to destroy the Ura. Of course the Ura would be pissed about it; ‘tis only natural. Zulf even learns of this and abandons the other three, obviously choosing his people over the filthy Caelondians that caused this mess in the first place.

You may wonder about the point I’m trying to make with what I’ve described up to here. From solitude to crowds, from one perspective to pondering about many… What can one take from such a narrative? At the end of the game, the player for the first time in the game gets to make two separate choices. As the Kid carries the burden of a battering ram on his shoulders to bend and break the Ura, Zulf himself is abandoned by his own people for bringing them suffering. After all, the Kid only appears because of Zulf… Only to retrieve the Shard that will bring hope back to the broken land.

He’s presented with two choices. He can leave Zulf to his own devices and stick to carrying that ol’ battering ram. It would protect him from the incoming Ura and allow him to escape with the Shard. And besides, doesn’t Zulf deserve desertion for what he did? He damaged the Bastion. He left the ones who found him and preferred to look in terms of race rather than in terms of friendship and survival. He let the values of the begotten old world control his actions… He let hatred consume him. So why shouldn’t the Kid leave him to die? Why should the Kid risk his life for such a pathetic human?

There is, however, the other choice. The Kid can sacrifice lifting that gigantic battering ram… He can leave his only defense against the remaining Ura behind and scoop up that wicked and worn man to save instead. He can take all the arrows and stones slung at him with the weight of the old and new worlds pressed down upon his back for the sake of one vile creature that isn’t even worth a fraction of the word “sacrifice.”

Funnily enough, it leaves the player to decide for the first time in the game. The first of two consecutive times that only happen at the end… The game never as much forces you to question your actions up until this point. Sure, you can decide how you play the game. What weapons you use and your preferred method of attack. How you explore the destroyed world. Whether to venture into the pasts of others or to keep on trekking to the tune of blissful ignorance.

But regardless of the background that has let you up to this point, you must choose. To save a vile man. To ensure your own safety.

Well, you can choose to forsake him. No one would blame you. That’s just logical for a human to do. And maybe it’s even a form of compassion. He’d suffer for his mistakes. He’d learn the consequences of his actions. And hopefully he would see his retribution as a way of coming to terms with his blind hatred. Maybe he’d see how clinging to the old world did him wrong. I don’t think he’d blame you if you left him there to die.

But…

That Kid. He’s different from the player. You might be controlling him.

But in the end, what does the Kid really want?

It’s not like we’ll know. This story was told by another man.

But let’s say you take the other route. Then what happens?

You witness one of the most beautiful scenes ever written in a video game. How about that as a reward to the player?

Does that mean you were wrong if you chose the other path?

I wouldn’t think so. I believe both paths have their own merits. But…

He lifts Zulf onto his back. He replaces that ram with a fellow human being. One who wronged him many a time, but he carries him regardless. He bears the wounds and scars caused by the careening arrows. All of them aim to kill the Kid. But he prioritizes the tragic man on his back still. He goes up that hill carrying the weight of both worlds. He receives the hatred of the Ura in full force. Even the old man knows he’s going to die.

But he doesn’t.

The Ura stop and take a look at that Kid. The one who has time and time again known the meaning of sacrifice. The Kid who never once seems to complain, at least from what we know of him through Rucks. He carries that burden and back tenfold. He cares about the very man who threatened to destroy the new world. He still loves that forsaken man. That wicked man. He doesn’t give a damn about race or prior actions.

He just wants that new world. He wants that future where humanity can live in peace. Where humanity can love.

Then again, who am I to suppose all of this? It’s all my speculation as a player who only saw that ending where the Kid takes such a man upon his back. I can’t read the Kid’s thoughts. Only an old man’s who thought the Kid would die.

But he doesn’t.

The second of two choices is after returning to the Bastion...  One I presume is the same regardless of the previous choice. On one side, the old man who acts as our eyes through the entire journey. On the other, the other surviving girl who we rescue from her own people. The old man wants to reset time. The Ura girl wants to escape to a new land. Maybe the previous land known before the move to the City. Reset time and prevent the Calamity in order to attain the old world reborn and given a second chance. Accept the world’s demise and create a new world of new values. Which is more appealing?

Well, I picked Zia’s path, personally. But again, neither path is wrong. The old world could be fixed. Disaster could be avoided and everyone could be saved. Or a new land could be discovered where the last of the living create their own little Eden. Everything of the old world is gone; all of the mistakes made are permanent, but they can build a new promise.

But regardless of the path, you’ll find the road. A road to the future. But you have to keep exploring. You have to keep on going. And isn’t Bastion’s gameplay based on that very premise? Worlds that open up as you peer onto them with your own eyes. Places you’ll only see if you take the time to get there yourself. But you’ll assuredly make it somewhere, you know?

We all strive for happiness, but sometimes happiness is not what we need. Sometimes we must learn sacrifice. Sometimes we have to make difficult choices such as the ones the Kid made at the end of Bastion. But the important thing is that we keep on, regardless of the future you or I choose. And that we support each other each step of the way. Not necessarily because it’s the right thing to do, but because we all draw a lot in life. Some lots are unfair, some lots are lucky.

But we’re all given a lot. So we should at least use what we’ve got, right?

We’ll endure a lot on the path. But we’ll also learn.

And maybe someday, we’ll have our own Bastion. Maybe we’ll make the wrong choice, but we’ll still have the Kid to carry us back to the Bastion when we can’t walk down our path anymore.

He’ll shoulder us like he shouldered Zulf. Maybe my Kid is different from yours.

But we all have that Kid. A crazy little bastard that lets us recall and realize.

To conclude… well, I figure I’ll point this little thing out. The closing credits song is called Setting Sail, Coming Home. In it are the melodies of two other songs from Bastion… “Build That Wall,” which is noted as Zia’s theme, and “Mother, I’m Here,” noted as Zulf’s theme. Together, they compose that beautiful song.

We can’t make it alone. That is what Bastion says to me. That is why that song only becomes whole with two separate melodies. That is why the other two songs feel so lonely without the other.

Sometimes you may not realize it, but the Kid is always holding you on his back.

Don’t forget that.

And maybe you’ll become the Kid for someone else.

And wouldn’t that be something?

And maybe, just maybe… We’ll all pass the time, simply telling stories like old man Rucks over there.

Wouldn’t that be something?

“I take your hand, now you’ll never be lonely… Not when I’m home, sweet home.”