Dante's Illiteracy

Knowing that my audience is of the kind that would probably not know of this turn of events, I should start by relating to you the big news...Remember that boring old poem by Dante? Well Electronic Arts is publishing a videogame based ever so loosely on the epic tale of Dante and Virgil's journey through Hell. How loosely? Well lets just admit that a game where you traipse around hell making pointed political comments would sell exactly zero copies. The premise of the game is that your lover has been taken by Satan and you, as "Dante" steal Death's scythe and fight your way through hell to save her. The game has nine formal levels--each based on a "circle of hell" from the poem--and the climax takes place in the battle against Lucifer himself in the frozen wasteland of the ninth circle. The parts of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot were obviously cut from the game and will not be appearing in Satan's mouths.

That part is fine, that part makes sense--and hey, yeah it's a pretty loose take on a classic but if that's what gets the kids excited about literacy then sure! Turns out that they are releasing a novelization of the game based on the poem to be released with it...That's like third order creative rights, this thing is getting a little out of hand just like a perverse game of "Whisper Down the Alley". Reminds me of the episode of "Cheers" where Frasier is trying to get the people at the bar more cultured by reading them "War and Peace" while throwing in interesting portions like motorcycle chases and helicopter battles.

Whatever gets the kids to read though right?

I guess tsathoggua, member of kotaku.com, gets the idea right, saying that as long as they don't alter the poem to make it fit their twisted rendition of it, it's fine:

"I wounded struggled my footing to find,
Struck in the back by an infidel's blade,
And 'twixt the shadows spoke Death thus to me:

"Thy time hath come, poet-turned-Crusader."
Such an injustice I could not endure,
For live on I must in flesh and not shade.

To that baleful Shade I then spoke these words:
"Bitch, down you shall go to that hellish place,
For not yet will I taste your shadowed blade."

And in fight quite fierce and quite Greek-inspired,
Death himself did fall to my mortal sword.
And his scythe I took, 'cause it was bitchin'."

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I found a website today where you can play the original frogger game for free online. I made it to level 4, but then died instantly each life on the second row of cars--that part is impossible! If any of you beat me there--even if you just make it to the pond and die let me know!

"Silence and Valor"
-B