Chapter Eight: in which Mr. Crowley discusses God of War

– Chapter Eight –

Well, Tris. I have visited Mr. Crowley as you suggested; though I've never met the man before, as I was shewn in he was leant against the mantle in his drawing room and gestured toward his bookshelf as soon as I entered. His shelves are so well stocked that any visitor there would be hard pressed to chuze just one.

'Have you read the latest periodical from Mr. Kratos?' he asked, with no introductions. 'We are just viewing it as a parenting manual. I do already address my cat as CAT, in a deep voice now. I have learned that from Kratos.'

Mr. Crowley's partner, Ms. Smashleigh, was at ease near the window in a comfortable armchair upholstered in the same shade of green as a frog (indeed the whole room was decorated beautifully and in the current style, but only by happy accident; Mr. Crowley's cheerful eccentricity had, the previous year, been entirely out of the prevailing fashion at the time but turned out to have been prophetically tasteful for the new one, and he tells me he is shortly to redecorate with perhaps the same notion in mind), and watched him with some amusement as he continued:

'We've found the genre we both really like is massive triple A stories about grief and parenthood. It's great! It seems to be a genre now.'

I nodded in assent, but offered in reply (as if I were not much concerned) that though my new favourite genre stems from creators growing up and thus writing characters who are grizzled fathers as grey as a Portsmouth sky in winter, I fear we overpraise those games and diversions that have nuanced narratives because they're still so new at the task.

'Ah!' he cried, fair rubbing his hands with glee, 'But they're catching up! They're catching up! There's this great sort of reconsidering of the whole thing!'

In his fervour Mr. Crowley strode over to the bookcase and pulled the volume in question down.

'It almost feels weird to me that God of War is such a violent game, because every time he peels a werewolf open like a banana it sort of detracts from the really melancholy and considerate message behind the whole thing,' he went on, seeming scarcely aware that we two others were even in the room. 'At the end of the day the solution to him dealing with a lifetime of toxic masculinity is to open monsters like they're fruit. It's really weird that games are now getting really interesting in the way they think about violence but it's still the violence has to be an integral part of it.'

Mr. Crowley here snatched up a banana from a fruit bowl on the side table and waved it under my nose. I confess here that I had to conceal a smile with my hand, pretending instead to be considering my point: I'm sure you know that Mr. Crowley's obsession with great apes is well known and discussed around town, and this fruit could not but send my thoughts in that wayward direction. Mr. Crowley was unaware of this, however, and cast the yellow treat down again in order to rifle through the pages of Kratos's work and shew me his favourite points, jabbing with a finger.

Mr. Crowley then explained that he and Ms. Smashleigh partook of these marvellous adventures together, with his fairer half serving as fiendish spectator. But it seems Ms. Smashleigh becomes an integral part of Mr. Crowley's experience. He spoke for some interminable length about Mr. Howard's work Skyrim (you will remember, I'm sure, that most of society was surprised when Mr. Howard stopped publishing his Elder Scrolls novel in installments in All the Year Round, and instead took to republishing chapter five repeatedly in different periodicals? But we cannot fault him, for it seems to have been a very successful venture). Mr. Crowley is, it seems, unable to ignore the sundries and frivolities and unnecessary small stories included in these publications, and instead dances between them all, trying to conclude one but picking up another, until he has quite lost interest.

'I was trying to go and repair a wagon, and then there was this smirking cat person by the side of the road who waylaid me on my attempt to sort out this wagon to talk about their lost mushrooms, or something!' Mr. Crowley seemed particularly vexed by the memory of this impertinent feline, and took up great handfuls of his hair, until Ms. Smashleigh mildly waved a hand and proclaimed, in a tone of some scorn:

'Oh Billy Burps' bumcloths! Oh, it's f—ing Billy Burp! He wants you to go and get his bumcloths so you can wash him for him! Well he can wash his own bum; leave him be and get on with the main story.'

This, as you can imagine, was a surprising outburst, and Mr. Crowley hurried to explain that this was the strength of their partnership: Ms. Smashleigh prefers to follow only the main thrust of the narrative, and so while she would not wish to wade in and start kicking a dragon to pieces (that role reserved for Mr. Crowley), she alone has the fortitude to tell ancillary characters to 's-d their bumcloths' (Tris, do not shew this to mother or Emma! You know how unbecoming it is for women to use profanity!).

This all served to put Mr. Crowley back in marvellous high spirits, and he called for his man to bring in some cold chicken and tomato, the remains of some grim feast no doubt, and tore into it with some relish.

'She even does Kratos grunts at me if I start dawdling too long, so that's added a wonderful second layer,' he said, waving a chicken bone in Ms. Smashleigh's direction with a considerable air of affection. 'And that's helped us to understand what's happening with the characters, because we've got this whole power dynamic between us about sticking to the story.'

And so we went on, talking of those new Twitch shows, and how freeing it can be to have the burden of choices – even inconsequential ones made in a realm of fantasy – removed from one, though Mr. Crowley did break off at one point to hold forth on the extremes of choice presented to us when we're trying to be taught a moral lesson (those morality plays and the like, Tris, or when father would bring that old Mr Furlong the priest over to read from the epistles – but Lord, didn't he eat all our cake, and then there was none for after dinner!). Do you remember Mr. Hudson's Knights of the Old Republic? When passing an unfortunate in the street the choices are always to kick them to death or else give away all your life savings – but there is none to look them earnestly in the eye and confess you have no change. And yet would that not be boring?

'Then it just becomes a grim reflection of your own sordid reality,' said Mr. Crowley, still boisterously eating cold chicken. 'And then what's the point? Imagine, if you can, a role play that was just an absolute simulation of going to work in London?'

'Ah, Mr. Crowley,' says I in return, for I flatter myself that perhaps nobody knows me better than I know myself, 'I would probably say 'This is amazing! What brave new directions!'' and we all laughed heartily.

Next week I believe Mr. Crowley wishes to take me to visit the celebrated actor Mr. Statham, who is currently holidaying in town.

This is all very strange, for as you know this was the very first time I had spoken to Mr. Crowley.