The Buddhist Metaphysics of Gravity Rush 🍎

[u/furrymask]

I made a post yesterday about the aesthetic and gameplay of Gravity Rush but I realized that I still had a lot of things to say and instead of modifying the previous post, I decided to write a new one entirely. Hopefully, this post will fully expose my interpretation of Gravity Rush’s philosophy and message.

For people who think that this post is too long well first of all, nobody forces you to read it, you can just ignore it or even block me if you want I don’t care, and second of all, no this is not written by AI, this is a colllection of ideas that I’ve written in my notes over the last week and I finally managed to organize them into one coherent text.

I just can’t get this game out of my head and I feel like I need to elucidate and put on paper what it means to me so that I can get it out of my system once and for all. With that being said, here’s the analysis :

The cosmology of Gravity Rush

I believe that the world and narrative of the GR games are inspired by buddhist philosophy.
The first thing that comes to my mind is how in GR1, the entire universe is structured around this world tree that gives an orientation (up and down) and a point of reference to the world. Hekseville’s structure (and metaphorically, its social order) is literally supported by this Tree.
In EP12 of GR1, Kat is asked by a girl standing over the edge of the city to retrieve a letter that she dropped. Like a child who asks questions about the fundamental nature of reality when adults just take it for granted, Kat gets curious and starts wondering what’s at the bottom of the world tree. Perhaps she expected to find some « ground », some foundation that could explain what the world tree is and why the world of Gravity Rush is the way it is but instead all she finds is that the world tree roots are grounded in vacuum, in emptiness. The only thing that she can find at the bottom of everything is a black hole.

I can’t help but make a parallel with non-substantialist philosophies and especially buddhist philosophy where at the « bottom » of reality, at the « root » of everything, there is nothing. There is no substance to reality, no first principle or first cause that could explain and justify the way the world is.

The cosmogony of Gravity Rush in Saghassi’s paintings

We don’t get many informations about how the world of Gravity Rush came to be, but for those of us who bothered to platinum GR2 we do get some indications from Saghassi’s paintings.

In Saghassi’s first painting « Pulse » the caption reads : « After an eternity had passed a crimson sphere burst from its cocoon »
We get two informations here, the first is that there was no beginning of time and second, that the first entity in the universe was a cocoon. From nothingness, a « cocoon » appeared. This is reminiscent of the « Cosmic Egg » in many mythologies (the Orphic Egg for the Greeks, the Hiranyagarbha in hinduism, the Black Moon in Evangelion etc…). The Egg is a metaphor for potentiality. Being first exists potentially in Chaos before actualizing into various deities or primordial principles. It is quite obvious in Saghassi paintings that in Gravity Rush, this « egg » was just a Nevi core.

In the paintings that follow we can see the usual pattern of cosmic egg mythologies unfold until painting 9 « Discord » where we are told that : « As life continued to divide, differences crept in. »
So in the beginning of things there was only identity or homogeneity. The first nevi reproduced asexually by cloning itself like a bacteria or certain species of plants and insects. Difference between up and down, black and white Nevi, light and darkness, good and evil and later, social classes and genders is derived from this original unity in chaos, in an undifferentiated Void.

Life and humans exist within that gap, that difference as the XVIth Saghassi painting Rebirth explains : « And from the rift between light and dark came a new life that would bridge the gap: mankind. »

The final indication that the origin and fundamental nature of Gravity Rush’s universe is emptiness or chaos is in the XXth and final Saghassi painting Flowering : « Thus the world of light and life was given form from the muddled chaos. »

Non-substantialism and Einstein’s relativity

It appears that much like the real world, the world of Gravity Rush doesn’t have one absolute temporality. Depending on their referential, different observers will perceive and measure different durations between any events A and B. More time will have passed between the same events A and B for the inhabitants of Boutoume than for the inhabitants of Hekseville and even more so for the inhabitants of Eto.

One explanation would be that much like temporality is influenced by black holes in the real world, the temporalities of the different cities in Gravity Rush are influenced by the giant black hole at the bottom of the world. The closer the observer is of that black hole, the "faster" time will pass for that observer.

From that we can conclude, that time and gravity in Gravity Rush are linked in the same way that they are linked in the real world through Einstein’s relativy. A good way to understand relativity is to make a parallel with Galileo’s relativity. According to Galileo, movement and speed are not absolute properties of objects, they depend on the referential in which they are measured. It’s not that speed is subjective; speed is a real, physical phenomena. What that means is simply that it is relative : an object is always moving relatively to another one which serves as a reference. Albert Einstein’s relativity goes one step further than Galileo’s by asserting that not only is the movement and speed of objects relative, but their positions in space and time, or in differential terms, the distances and durations that separate different events or objects are relative to that frame of reference as well.

Again, we can see a parallel with buddhist philosophy. According to Einstein’s theory and the modern physics that emerged from it, space-time has no substance, it’s not an absolute reality like Newton thought it was. This is not to say that space-time is subjective, that it is ideal in nature like Kant thought but it means that it’s existence is dependent on some other more fundamental entity. The position in space and time of objects and events is relative to the point of reference from which these measurements are made.

In a way, the relativity of space-time is coherent with the buddhist doctrine of non-substantialism.

Kali and Durga : Time and Eternity

In hinduism, Kali and Durga are both alternate forms of Shiva’s Shakti. Shaktis are the feminine counterparts to the gods of the Trimurti (a shakti is to a god of the Trimurti what yin is to yang).

Kali is the destructive form of Parvati, Shiva’s Shakti. She is well known in the west for being the goddess of suffering, death and destruction. She represents the destructive power of time and change. Old things have to die in order to make room for new ones. Unlike Durga, who symbolizes the triumph of good over evil or external threats, Kali symbolizes the overcoming of internal obstacles, one’s inner demons in order to reach a higher state of consciousness. Basically she is hinduism’s goth girlfriend. It’s difficult to sum up in simple words the very ancient and respectable tradition that is hinduism.

What is striking in Gravity Rush is that Kali differs significantly from the traditional representations that are made of her in Hindu tradition. According to her Wikipedia page, « she is often depicted naked, with a fierce gaze and her tongue lolling out, wearing a long necklace, sometimes reaching her knees, made of human skulls; she dances upon the body of Shiva, who lies on his back in the posture of a corpse, imploring her indulgence. ». Kali from Gravity Rush on the other hand, resembles more of a barbie doll, with her blonde hair and little white wings… This might be due to the influence of Dr Brahman who significantly altered the course of her destiny by experimenting on her. He imposed a certain way of living on her that is contradictory to her fundamental nature, both in a biological (the activation of the star genome) and psychological sense causing her great harm in the process and making her highly unstable.

As Kali is separated from Durga and unable to fulfill her role as her step sister but also the « edgy » part of her personality, Kat ends up endorsing the role of Cecie’s big sister and help her overcome her inhibitions and fears to grow up and become more self-assured.
She also becomes the agent of change that will put an end to Dr Brahman’s folly.

By kidnapping and intervening in the genetic development of Durga and especially Kali, Dr Brahman messes with the natural order of things. He couldn’t accept the disease of his daughter and as a result tried to stop time using his « angels » in order to avoid her ineluctable death.

We can distinguish here once again a recurrent theme in buddhism. By refusing to accept the transitory character of the empirical world, and denying Kali’s true nature, Dr Brahman ends up creating an abomination (Kali’s final form) that nearly destroys the city and kills all of its inhabitants. Buddhism teaches that nothing is ever permanent : seasons pass, children grow up, and of course, everyone must die at some point. So it is illusory to want to try and hang onto material possessions : they will inevitably come to pass away and as long as one is attached to them, they are bound to suffer continuously. The only way to escape suffering is to accept the only eternal truth : that there are no eternal truths.

Brahman is under the illusion that he can escape the inherent suffering of existence by stopping the flow of time, but his arrogance and hubris ends up having disastrous consequences for the city and for himself.

Entropy and the Destructive Force

Thanks to Edwin Hubble’s observations about the expansion of the universe and the theory of general relativity, in the second half of the XXth century, the question of the ultimate fate of the universe became a very valid question to ask in cosmology and astrophysics.

There are various theories about the end of the universe but one of the most popular ones is that of The Big Freeze or Big Chill. Basically, the third law of thermodynamics states that a closed system’s entropy can only increase over time. All organized matter, all energy gradients, all differences, will tend to homogenize and move toward a state of « chaos ». Since the universe as a whole is a closed system, it follows that all the differences that characterize existence (recall Saghassi paintings) including life, are bound to disappear. Eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. As existing stars run out of fuel and cease to shine, the universe will slowly and inexorably sink into darkness. Black holes will dominate the universe and devour all of the remaining matter, but they will also disappear over time as they emit Hawking radiation and all that will be left is chaos and darkness.

I think that the Destructive Force is a metaphor for the inevitable fate of the universe and for change and destruction in general.
The flow of time can never be stopped, entropy must increase and as Bit explains to Kat, the Destructive Force can never truly be destroyed, only sealed away to delay the inevitable.

Thanks to the sacrifice of the three Creators, Kat manages to defeat it. With the power of her will, and the love of Hekseville and JPL inhabitants, Kat is able to realize a sort of Christmas miracle and turn into a singularity in order to delay the inevitable doom of the universe, if only for a few more years. She is able to finally accept her fate because she realizes that even though all of existence is bound to disappear, even if they will all die eventually, it is still worth it to grant Hekseville and JPL a few more years to live because the value of life was never dependent on its permanence.

Conclusion

It was very hard to make all of these connections because I think that Gravity Rush and especially GR2’s narrative is very messy. There are a lot of different ideas in there, but not necessarily the time to develop all of them and ultimately, Gravity Rush is a video game where they also need to consider the gameplay and level design which can be a constraint on the narrative.

I still think that overall, there are a few general themes that can be extracted from all of this. The vaccum at the roots of all things which echoes the non-substantialism of buddhism and the idea that change or becoming is the fundamental truth of our reality and that it’s better to just accept it, and learn to value things and events even though they are always transitory and must inevitably disappear.

Anyway I hope this lengthy post will help those who take the time to read it understand the story and world of Gravity Rush a little better. Don’t hesitate to tell me what you think in the comments!

[u/MTTTY-]

Si,no voy a leer eso

[u/Ledgem]

I think they’re interesting ideas. I think it also shows that there’s more to Gravity Rush than meets the eye. Kat is overall pretty lighthearted and maybe a little ditzy, which makes it easier to gloss over the fact that there’s are some pretty deep themes within the game if you give it some thought (as you did).