Okay can I rant for a bit about how amazing The Witness is?

Seriously look at this image. You probably see this fellow kneeling, reaching for a cup resting atop a glass, but he is unable to reach it. His SHADOW, however, has it within his grasp. You’re probably thinking, Oh that’s cool, I guess.

But honestly, it brought me to literal tears. Really, as I sat and pondered what this could mean, as I came to grasp the love and care put into this game, I felt myself getting emotional. It’s absolutely clear, from the thought and detail contained within EVERY moment of this game, that it’s not JUST something cool. It has an incredibly deep meaning. In fact, it summarizes the entire core design of both the game and its story.

So, just outside this statue in the game is an audiolog from Nicholas of Cusa, quoting from The Vision of God:

Should anyone express any concept by which you could be conceived, I know that this concept is not a concept of you, for every concept finds its boundary at the wall of Paradise. Should anyone express any likeness and say that you ought to be conceived according to it, I know in the same way that this is not a likeness of you. So too if anyone, wishing to furnish the means by which you might be understood, should set forth an understanding of you, one is still far removed from you. For a most towering wall separates you from all these and secludes you from everything that can be said or thought, because you are absolute from all the things that can fall within any concept.

The quote may be a bit hard to understand, but it’s *ABSOLUTELY* essential to modern monotheistic religion, particularly Christianity & Islam.

So, basically, Nicholas is expressing a belief from Neoplatonism called The One. This idea held that God (sometimes called “the Good”) is this absolute perfection, this unknowable being-beyond-being and all that we are and all that we see is really just a shadow of The One.

This belief went on the inform the thinking of Augustine of Hippo who in turn influenced that of Anselm & Thomas Aquinas. Anselm’s Ontological Argument and Aquinas’ Five Ways are some of the most important arguments for the existence of God ever written.

But let’s step back a moment to Neoplatonism. It’s called Neoplatonism because it derives from the teachings of Plato.

In particular, the concept of The One is an extension of Plato’s famous Analogy of the Sun, which serves as a foundation for his even more famous analogy of the cave. To quote from Wikipedia:

The Good (the sun) provides the very foundation on which all other truth rests. Plato uses the image of the sun to help define the true meaning of the Good. The Good “sheds light” on knowledge so that our minds can see true reality. Without the Good, we would only be able to see with our physical eyes and not the “mind’s eye”. The sun bequeaths its light so that we may see the world around us.



Okay now, with this background in mind, let’s take a look at this image.

A man is kneeling in supplication, reaching out to a cup that looks very much like the holy grail. When I first saw this I wondered why is he kneeling, if he’s trying to reach for the cup?

But, in fact, if he simply stood up and reached for it, he wouldn’t be tall enough to grasp it. He might even break the glass upon which it is resting. It is only through his humility and faith - represented by his kneeling - that his shadow grasps the shadow grail (which, btw, is being cast by the sun).

Do you see what I’m saying? This setup is a comment on the nature of faith and reality. Taken one way, we might say that science & reasoning will lead us astray when it comes to God. It is only through faith & humility we can reach him.

But it can be taken in the other way too! In Plato’s analogy, the SHADOWS represent our material world, while the real world - the world of Forms - exists beyond it. The things our senses reveal are simply the shadows of these Forms, as cast by God.

If we take it this way, then the shadow man represents our mortal coil and he is deceived. He thinks he has grasped God (or perhaps Life? Eternity? Something else?) in his hand, but in fact he has simply abased himself to no good end. Maybe he could reach the grail - the real one, not the shadow - if only he stood up.

BUT LET’S TALK ABOUT WHY I EVEN NOTICED THE SHADOW, OKAY?

In another part of the island, shadows play an important part in a series of puzzles. On those puzzles, you often have to ignore shadows cast in order to trace a path of light. Other times you need to trace the path of shadows. In the final puzzle, you must do both.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it beyond solving puzzles, but after seeing this image and thinking about it, I now suspect it to be a commentary on the nature of faith & reason (or “conceptual reasoning” and “instinctive reasoning”), a commentary echoed in other parts of the game. To proceed in life, you cannot abandon either. You must embrace both the evidence of the senses and the knowledge of the mind. That is, in fact, the core duality of the game design itself. To solve the conceptual puzzles (i.e. use one’s reason), you must pay attention to the surrounding environment (i.e. use one’s senses). But let us not forget that we are not solving puzzles merely for the sake of solving puzzles. We are solving puzzles to open doors to unlock new vistas and audioscapes. In other words, we are using our reason to indulge our senses but in order to succeed with our reason, we must also engage our senses.

So. Yeah. That’s how fucking amazing The Witness is. Pure genius. This moment of epiphany ranks among the top 5 moments in my entire gaming existence.

And to further explain why it brought me to tears: In the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, Jonathan Blow (that’s the guy who made The Witness) mentioned how depressed he was following the release of his first game, Braid. While everyone loved the puzzles, he thought they failed to grasp the deeper meaning.

And yet I suspect that much the same will occur here, with The Witness. There’s something both beautiful and melancholic about that.