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Unpacking #Bugsnax 's theme of failure and self-deception, 1/23, not a joke tweet, spoilers for most of the game
So, one of the things you're likely to notice first on a typical playthrough is how bizarrely depressing the villagers' personal quests are. Every single one, without fail, begins with the character attempting to achieve a goal, and ends with them unambiguously failing at it.
Triffany is unable to find her grandma's resting place, Gramble is unable to make the bugsnax love him, Wambus can't grow bugsnax, Wiggle can't find inspiration, Floofty can't continue their research, and the quests just /end/ like this. There's no upswing.
Often the characters will reveal a personal struggle that relates to this failure and how it reinforces their belief that they will never overcome this struggle. They don't try to fix it, they just say it was inevitable that they'd fail, and wallow in it.
The only resolution to this appears in the epilogue where each character appears to have gained a new lease on life and tells the player how they plan to push forward and do what's best for them, what makes them happy, and not let the past weigh them down.
What changed that let them break out of their mindset of futility? What gave them the push to try harder?
It's because the bugsnax are gone.
I think bugsnax are food for a reason.
It's because the bugsnax are gone.
I think bugsnax are food for a reason.
When you're depressed, or you're faced with an insurmountable problem, and you don't want to think about it, you want an easy way out. You want a short term solution to stop feeling bad, instead of a long term solution that solves the problem but takes work.
In the inevitable heel turn scene, Lizbert says that bugsnax sense your emotional weakness and make you think that they're the solution to your problems. They'll make you rich, they'll give you inspiration, they'll love you like your family never did, they're an easy way out.
Just like binge eating when you're depressed, just like ignoring the problem and playing video games, just like all the things we do that make us spiral deeper and deeper into self-deception with short term solutions that make us feel good. It's all junk food.
I know this because I'm doing it right now by writing this thread instead of addressing my work backlog. Thinking about it makes me stressed so instead I'm eating a bugsnak by thinking about video games instead!
(I'm seeing a therapist tonight btw don't worry)
(I'm seeing a therapist tonight btw don't worry)
But just like bugsnax, these habits will make you unrecognizable. They'll drag you down and make you a part of them, and make it even harder to actually get up and solve the problem for real. Every day you ignore it it gets worse, and you lose the ability to deal with it.
I guess that's kind of like having hot dogs for hands, if you think about it.
In painting bugsnax and everything they represent as the 'wrong answer', the game pretty clearly presents community and support networks as the 'right answer'. You shouldn't go inward for comfort and push the world away, you should be able to reach out to people who can help.
I think I can safely say this is a pretty uncontroversial take. The most obvious and spelled-out example of this whole theme is Eggabell and the tapes. She's the most obviously clinically depressed of anyone in town and her girlfriend isn't able to provide the support she needs.
But the solution she finds to try and bolster her self-worth is, of course, bugsnax! Notably, she also makes progress by reaching out to chandlo, but working out with him is hard, takes work, and the easier, quicker solution is always nearby. So she gets /really/ into bugsnax.
And then by pushing her away, she leads Liz to get completely consumed by bugsnax to an extent that no one else in the game is. She cannot fix herself with her own bootstraps anymore. She's barely even human (grumpus?) anymore.
Through this reading, the ending where Liz and Bell are both fused to the bugsnax abomination seems remarkably grim. But I think you could interpret it more kindly as representing how, if you want to help someone in that situation, you can't expect to just magically cure them.
It'll be unpleasant for you too. You have to put in work and put yourself in their shoes to some extent to really be able to understand enough to help them effectively, and it might end up affecting you like it affects them, but one person just can't overcome it on their own.
Closing thoughts: I think the intensely kids-show-parody names and muppet character designs also serve the general theme of nice-looking, appealing things being deceptive or hiding more serious undertones. There's an instinct to turn your brain off and not take it seriously.
Just like you want to turn your brain off and get some dopamine when you're trying not to think about your problems, you want to just look at the cute bugsnax and their funny noises and not think about the long term effects that this addiction is having on the townspeople.
But just like looking adorable doesn't make the bugsnax anything but dangerous parasites, looking like muppets doesn't make the characters stop having problems. You don't /get/ to turn your brain off, because all their dialogue reminds you they're not actually kid's show rejects.
Anyway that's about it. I was shocked at how much I liked this game and I think realizing that it had an actual theme made me see why I liked it a little more. I just wanted to write this down to maybe soften the 'awful meme game' perception a little bit.
Obviously this isn't super organized but I hope people at least sort of see where I'm coming from? I just think Young Horses deserves a little more credit for knowing what they're doing since, yknow, octodad was also a silly game that had Themes and we all liked it just fine
