Perfection is a lie we tell ourselves to comfort our illusion of objectivity. Do not fall for it.
The chase for perfection is a foolish endeavor. It can never be achieved, because of the subjective nature of reality. If you’re looking for perfection anywhere but mathematics… hate to break it to ya, buckaroo, but you’re going to be searching a while.
That’s not to say such a chase is useless, or even necessarily a bad idea - the catch is that you’ve gotta know when to quit, as to not go entirely mad or just experience frustration eternal.
But what about the media we consume? We, as humans, nearly instinctively love talking about the stories that are important to us. There’s… a bit of trouble though. Another little quirk of human nature. That bit of defensiveness and competitiveness that drives us to seek or sense conflict where I just wanted to talk about Majora’s Mask, you don’t have to yell at me about Ocarina of Time, please, I like them both!!!
I find that a useful way to bridge this gap so that people can Feel Correct without feeling like they Must Correct the Objectively Incorrect opinions of others is what I hope to outline below.
Seek not perfection - rather, seek its asymptote.
I think about frequently a concept that I either came up with independently or read about somewhere that I could not tell you about even if you threatened my family with a loaded gun.
I call it attainable perfection.
Attainable perfection is when something has successfully been distilled to a state where any changes either are either detrimental or are merely diminishing returns.
Tightening up the video editing of Mad Max: Fury Road can almost certainly be done - but why? It’s already tight, focused, and tuned to experiencing the film almost perfectly.
You can make the controls of Katamari Damacy or Silent Hill more responsive, or less clunky, but I believe that would diminish the experience. Trying to carefully roll a weird clump around and panicking as you swing a pipe at a monster in the fog are core features of these games! (You don’t swing pipes at monsters in Katamari, but I’m happy to call Harry Mason a weird clump.)
Dark Souls II is far from an attainably perfect game, but its lighting engine at release sure didn’t help.
Felvidek is yet another attainably perfect masterpiece - it’s weird and clunky, the music is atmospheric but weirdly anachronistic, the dialogue is frequently goofy, and then there’s the deeply unexpected secret area later in the game… But all of it comes together to make an experience that I find is singular, and seems not to care what you think as long as you think of it as Felvidek.
Attainable Perfection is subjective and personal.
There’s a lot of stuff that I think is attainably perfect that other people would vehemently disagree with.
Good.
This variety of opinions on the stories and games we make and read and play and watch is important to have. If everything were made for everyone, it would be a terribly dull world.
It is key that attainable perfection be subjective, because the discomfort with a lack of objectivity is an important. There is no growth without discomfort, after all, and being able to accept the subjective rather than try to immediately find refuge in objectivity is important, because subjectivity is, as I said before, fucking everywhere. Immerse yourself in it, and be free.
A list of things I think are attainably perfect, in no particular order:
Katamari Damacy The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask Chrono Trigger Kung Fu Hustle Mad Max: Fury Road The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy Disco Elysium Toxic by Britney Spears Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles Hot to Go by Chappel Roan Kirby Air Ride Never Stop Blowing Up, the season of Dimension 20 Strawberry creme savers Altoids Sours Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat) - The Immortals Signalis Crow Country
I need to think more but I have a lot of examples I swear.