[book post] Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

First off: the foreward to the 25th century anniversary edition of this book is worth the price of admission all on its own. Normally you'd expect a foreward to be a somewhat-dry account of the context & dialogue around the work, right? Instead, this foreward is just this translator guy getting SO MAD on behalf of his bro Freire. It's just a solid 35 pages of this dude being like, "here's some dude who claims to be doing critical pedagogy, but actually this dude sucks shit, I hate him" and "here's some high school in Arizona that banned Friere's book, how dare, what shitlords." (Not that I approve of high schools banning books, but like, one principal being a jackass in some random US town happens every other Tuesday, lol; feels like a bit of a non-event compared to some of the other stuff...!)

Said foreward is even funnier when you get to the main text, because Friere himself is so mild and calm compared to foreward guy. Like, may we all have a friend willing to fight literally everyone on our behalf, this dude rules.

Anyway. This book has been on my list since aaaall the way back in early 2020, when I read The Charisma Machine.

That book described an ambitious-but-ultimately-shortsighted education venture, One Laptop Per Child, which targeted kiddos in the global south. In passing, that book's author noticed that the OLPC administrators (both the ur-admins in Cambridge, MA, and the boots-on-the-ground very-enthusiastic urban-cosmopolitan guys in Paraguay) were huge fans of revolutionary-education-y books such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

I'd never heard of the book before, so I noted it down, and the name kept coming up in various contexts over the coming months, so I kept nudging it up the to-read list, and now here we are.

( what I knew going in )

In general, what I hoped for was nitty-gritty deets on what made Friere's literacy program so effective. That... is not the point of this book, actually. There are glimpses of it, here and there, but Freire's much more interested in his pedagogical theory.

Basically, the breakdown of the book is like:

( the bulk of the book )

[video game post] Long Live the Queen; NORCO

Long Live the Queen [x] is such a hecking delight of a game that I'd recommend it pretty unreservedly to whoever.

Normally, I do not dump VNs into the "unreserved recommendation" bucket—not because I don't love VNs, but because they tend to be an acquired taste; not everyone enjoys when their game feels more like reading a book than playing a thing, so I have to know a bit about the person before I recommend one.

But Long Live the Queen marries the VN format to some simulation game mechanics, resulting in a brisk, tight gameplay loop that's immensely satisfying, lending itself to endless "just one more try!" play-thoughts, and a storyline that's breezy and interesting but not overdone.

The premise is straightforward: your mother, the Queen of Nova, passed away, and you've got ~a year to do all the studying, politicking, and preparation you can manage before you inherit the throne yourself.

Like many old-school adventure games, this results in a lot of dead ends—death by snakebite, by assassination, by rogue mage, whatever. But the dead ends never feel annoying—you always end up learning a bit more about the world at each end, vow to study more Intrigue or Poison or Lore the next time, and try again. This is the first RPG game in a long time where I didn't simply reach for a guide when I got stuck. Normally I'm lazy; normally I just want to get on with the story. But here, the process of forging my own way ahead was the satisfying thing, in-and-of itself, and I had a blast jotting down notes as I got a little further each time.

The mechanics are based around two simple things: mood, and classes. You take classes to level up various skills, but how much you learn in those classes depends on your mood: if you're feeling lonely, you'll be better at studying Conversation-based skills; if you're feeling cheerful, you won't be in the mood to study Military-based skills. Each week you can take two classes and pick one event to adjust your mood, and events unfold based on checks on whatever skills you've developed.

The skills offer just enough resistance to turn what could be simple "pick option A or B" choices into satisfying little puzzles; how can I stay Willful long enough to master all the Intrigue skills when my dad keeps lecturing me and totally harshing my mood?

And probably my main takeaway, game-design-wise, was how little text you need to get across a satisfying story to the player. This VN is not trying to tell some deeply dramatic, nuanced, novelesque story; characters tend to only have very short lines of dialogue, and thin characterization. But, they still feel full and exciting—because, one, all that negative space gives you plenty of room to project whatever you like onto these characters, and two, you have so much control over the narrative that they feel real and engaging. The game designer is not trying to tell you some Correct Story TM; they're getting out of your way as much as possible, so that you can actually experience and build the story yourself.

It was interesting to contrast that with the NORCO demo [x] that I played on the same day. I've been following NORCO's development... oh, gosh, ever since some of the author's heron pixel art made the rounds on Tumblr, like, years and years ago? Weird, slightly-scifi-y deep south is my jam and I'm so invested in where this project is going.

But the demo left me a little cold. Where LLtQ was deft and light-footed, NORCO felt a tad overwritten and drag-y. The pixel art is gorgeous, and absolutely the centerpiece, but I felt like we spent too much time clearing our throat and looking at the dreary run-down suburb without interacting with it much, or very meaningfully. It feels like the world's about to open up, when we get on a motorcycle with the house android to go and try and find my brother... but then we cut to a lengthy flashback sequence! which opens with more ponderous, slow text! augh! I'm still interested in seeing the final result; there was a lot to like in the demo, but, gosh, there's something satisfying about something minimal and carefully-done that's easy to forget.