Five Stages of Grief – Rime. 11 video games with a powerful message
Table of Contents
At first sight, the gameplay and audio-visual setting of Rime resemble a typical artistic indie platformer. We play as a little boy who is accompanied by a sweet fox during his adventures on a mysterious island. We solve various puzzles, explore the surroundings and jump over obstacles – a game like many others. Over time, we become convinced that our protagonist tries to somehow, by using his imagination, meet with his father, whom he lost in a tragedy at sea.
The symbolic tower that the boy was trying to reach becomes very important at this point of the game. When he gets to the top of the tower, the boy must say farewell to his companion, that is, the fox. He must let him go. However, after a short time we find out that there is a twist in the whole story – the events have happened the other way around . SPOILERS ahead. It was the father who lost his son in tragic circumstances and in his mind created an island and a tower, dreaming of a child that could return to him. In the game's finale, he hugs his ghost-form son for the last time and accepts his greatest loss.
The mentioned tower in Rime consists of different locations, which represent the so called five stages of grief, namely: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This is the theory of American doctor Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who described all stages of coping with the loss of someone close in her book titled On Death and Dying. Later this model was extended to other personal misfortunes, such as divorce or loss of job. The author of the book emphasized that this theory is not based on empirical research and does not necessarily have to follow such a pattern.
