Monday, December 16, 2013

Game in Japanese literature

Tamaki liked handsome men. She was a sucker for good looks. As Aomame saw it, this tendency of her friend’s ranked as a sickness. Tamaki could meet men of marvelous character or with superior talents who were eager to woo her, but if their looks did not meet her standards, she was utterly unmoved. For some reason, the ones who aroused her interest were always sweet-faced men with nothing inside. And when it came to men, she would stubbornly resist anything Aomame might have to say. Tamaki was always ready to accept—and even respect—Aomame’s opinions on other matters, but if Aomame criticized her choice of boyfriend, Tamaki simply refused to listen. Aomame eventually gave up trying to advise her. She didn’t want to quarrel with Tamaki and destroy their friendship. Ultimately, it was Tamaki’s life. All Aomame could do was let her live it. Tamaki became involved with many men during her college years, and each one led to trouble. They would always betray her, wound her, and abandon her, leaving Tamaki each time in a state close to madness. Twice she resorted to abortions. Where relations with the opposite sex were concerned, Tamaki was truly a born victim.
    - 1Q84, Haruki Murakami

Fascinating, is it not, how much both art and science reliably support the basic precepts of Game if one simply keeps one's eyes open. What are "sweet-faced men with nothing inside" if not Alphas with an abundance of Dark Triad traits?

Is it any surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Game that they would always "always betray her, wound her, and abandon her" without her ever learning the error of her ways? And note how the author portrays the Tamaki character's total lack of interest in male character or other qualities.

I tend to doubt that Murakami has ever even heard of Game, and yet he somehow happened to describe its consequences in far more vivid colors than any of its advocates, with the possible exception of Roissy, could ever manage.

13 comments:

JCDaedalus said...

http://thoughtcatalog.com/emmi-jacqueline/2013/12/6-possible-reasons-you-cant-find-a-nice-guy/

Compare and contrast. The disconnect between their rationalizations and what's observed in nature is always astounding, if not sadly amusing.

Murakami's portrayal inter-sexual interaction of is very reminiscent of Hemmingway: he does it with so little description, yet manages to bring plenty of content across.

Anonymous said...

I came across a good red-pill bit recently in Card's Shadow Puppets. There's a girl who knows a guy is in love with her. He also saved her life, and she narrates how much she likes him, respects him, enjoys his company, he understands her better than anyone else, blah blah blah. But somehow she doesn't love him, and eventually she finds an excuse to get away so she doesn't have to face him anymore. And her main reason is that he's constantly watching her, being nice to her, doing things for her -- annoying her, in her words.

Every boy should be taught that early: if you do something nice for a girl who isn't already head-over-heels in love with you, you're annoying her.

Revelation Means Hope said...

2 things come to my mind:
1) It has taken me many years to finally acknowledge the truth I've observed since elementary school that girls don't ever seem to learn their lesson in relationships. Some of my female friends didn't even learn their lessons from being raped, and still engaged in the same behaviors, if anything doubling down on the bad behaviors.
2) I'm still thinking through the consequences of the fact that women don't seem to have ANY depth of respect for male virtues. It wasn't until the last few years that I even noticed, thanks to game blogs and VP. I knew for decades that they weren't interested in the same things and topics, but never put two and two together from all the evidences that at the basic, motivation level, they just have a different set of drives.

I blame my delta/christianity/churchianity upbringing that steeped me and my peers in a bath of blue-pill lies. It takes years of dedicated effort to rewrite that early programming.

VD said...

It has taken me many years to finally acknowledge the truth I've observed since elementary school that girls don't ever seem to learn their lesson in relationships.

How can they? Are you going to stop being attracted to nice breasts and pretty faces? The problem is that men are primarily attracted to physical attributes. Both decent and dangerous women can have those attributes. Women are primarily attracted to psychological attributes and decent men simply do not have the Dark Triad traits that women find attractive.

Natalie said...

So men take what they've learned about women via game and use it to find suitable companionship whereas women are just at the whim of their tinglies? Yeah, no.

Revelation Means Hope said...

Vox,
the difference is that I never refused to acknowledge that I was attracted to the finely shaped rear end, and to a lesser but decent extent the nice rack. And pretty face, must not forget that as long as she had a good BMI. Nor did I refuse to admit that women who possessed such blessings had a power over my decision making, nor did I deny my attraction to myself nor my friends.

That's the part my programming made it difficult for me to acknowledge, although it has been more than 10 years since I finally got the red-pill truth into my bloodstream.

The piece of the puzzle which I was missing, and probably many others as well, is the ADVANTAGE to the woman to never explore and understand the dark mysteries of her attraction. How could she possibly "win" at life if she always fell for men/traits that modern world tells us are bad for her?

I really need to ensure that I communicate this red-pill truth where there is receptive ground. Starting of course at home....

Bob Loblaw said...

So men take what they've learned about women via game and use it to find suitable companionship whereas women are just at the whim of their tinglies? Yeah, no.

Most men who run a good game use it to sleep with pretty girls. He gets the physical attractiveness; she gets the "tingles". There's no inconsistency.

olympiapress said...

I've found John D. McDonald, author of the Travis McGee books, is an absolute authority on game. Not so much for the character of McGee (who as a detective-ish person has white knight tendencies), but some of the other regulars. One guy in particular, Meyer, is a ludicrously hirsute economist who constantly hooks up with young beauties in FL, just by being playful and a great listener.

More interestingly, McGee will at times monologue on his need to white-knight with the ladies, and he berates himself for it.

Female solipsism is also a common feature of these books... There are 21 of them in all, I'm on #14.

Anonymous said...

So men take what they've learned about women via game and use it to find suitable companionship whereas women are just at the whim of their tinglies?

Not all men use it for that, but that's a pretty good summary of the situation, yes.

buzzardist said...

Good to see you reading Murakami, Vox. He's a riotously satirical writer, although the satire doesn't always come through in the English translation since so much of it is bound up in the mores of Japanese culture. But even with that limitation, Murakami has moments like this one when he cuts to the bone and is one of the most insightful writers today for describing people as they are and as they behave.

Perhaps that comes from running a bar for those years before he became a writer. But the man writes alphas and betas exceptionally well, and how women react to them in Murakami's novels is so often spot on.

Unknown said...

Vox, do you agree with St. Augustine that men and women seek the good but get stuck in lesser goods? If yes, than what is it that women are seeking in the Dark Triad? Where is "the good" in the Dark Triad? If no, is the desire for the Dark Triad purely attributed to the Fall, purely sin driven?

I have been trying to tease out what it is about the Dark Triad that is good. My conclusion so far is that these characteristics: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy (and sadism), are acting as proxies for leadership and focus set on "the mission", determination and drive, confidence and emotion control (and aggression). Or something like that. Or am I wrong, they really like the darkness over the light?

Unknown said...

Cali - Women are at the whim of their tingles because many of them choose to be. MPAI, though in this regard I'd say more women than men these days seem to be driven by their lizard brain. I don't wish to NAWALT here, many of us have met women capable of introspection, long term projection and self-denial, but it is sadly very very few of them (the worst is the women I know who do see the world as we do and yet can't adjust or don't realize that they don't adjust...the will and self-awareness is lacking). More men than women seem to be able to introspect as a general rule, perhaps because men, being the more expendable sex, needed to develop more emotion control to gain an upper hand in combat and live to breed another day. In girl world, back stabbing and biting didn't stop another woman from breeding, it just stopped her from getting the man she wanted (or didn't stop her since the cuckold rate has supposedly been 10% for most of civilization).

Henry said...

Vox, I've been thinking about what makes an Alpha in terms of family dynamics recently.

It seems to me that having a little sister is a possible influence on natural game. think about it. there are several things happening. at a basic level, getting used to being around women(and if ones siblings are attractive, i imagine this helps too), and also in interaction. Teasing little sisters is common. This attitude could very well pass to other women. It did in my case and it helped a lot.

Post a Comment

NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.