For N.

Famous Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud once said : "The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water." The part of the mind that is exposed, to itself and to the outside world, what is called the awareness, only explains a small fraction of the complexity of the consciousness. Studying the subconscious of an individual, can often offer more answers and a more comprehensive understanding of him or her. After experiencing "Awesomenauts", one cannot help but feel a special attachment and a great deal of empathy for one character: Derpl Zork, nephew of Babl Zork. He is portrayed as an unintelligent and delusional heir to a huge empire. The only talent observable seem to be to kill with his war vehicule. For this reason , his uncle continuously sends him out to battle hoping that one day, he would die. This attachment to Derpl is not unreasonable. Indeed, the character of Derpl Zork through out the game is a symbol of subconsciousness. He represents the part of the psyche that everyone of us ,living in society have repressed during our childhood, with the help of education. So it is no suprise that the tragic and fatalistic backstory of this character speaks to the reader so much. The reader can see part of themself, or rather a possible fate had they not repressed certain things.

I will support this interpretation by analysing the representation of this character and comparing them to the major theories of psychoanalysis.

Its is at a very young age that kids learn to repress certain parts of themself. This is a very well known freudian concept. Indeed he said of the topic that : “Civilization and higher education have a large influence in the development of repression…as a result of which was formerly felt as agreeable now seems unacceptable and is rejected with all possible psychic force”. The education and nurture of a child will determine what he will reject in order to grow. Exemples of these include selfish impulses such as the impulse to hurt others or to steal. As we learn to control ourselves we are in a sense putting these desires away in a box, deep in our mind.

One question a reader might have is how the construction of Derpl relate to that of a very young human child. To start we will look at the physical apearance of this individual. Many morphological hints indicate that this creature is obviously very young. If we take into account the area of the sprite of Derpl, he is actually one of the smallest Awesomenauts in the cast. Furthermore, as opposed to many of his compatriots, he does not have any supernatural powers and seem completely vulnerable without his vehicule. Furthermore, his limbs are very small compared to his head, a common feature among highly cephalised animal babies.


What is truly powerful is the parrallel to a human embryo. As the modern science of embryology explains, one can see the evolution of chordates within the metamorphosis of the embryo from a zygote to a child. Indeed, embryos in the womb of the mother go through phases of developement that make their morphology ressemble that of other animals. Starting with looking like a fish, to an amphibian, to a lizard and finally to a chimpanzee foetus. Just like the way Austrian-American child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim compared the metamorphosis of the frog in the tale "the frog king" to a human to the metamorphosis of a frog-like embryo into an independant adult. Derpl is not far from looking like an amphibian-like embryo: the smooth, scaleless skin, lack of nose and lack of teeth are great characteristics. He has doesnt have well formed limbs, which furthers point us at the foetal connection. He the a symbol, the embodiment of immaturity, the child that has not morphed into an independant adult yet.

The child may seem like a very strange and almost alien creature to adults. Indeed, plenty of literature exist to prepare parents to meet their human offspring. No adult research this thoroughly to meet any other member of their species. This is because the behaviour of the infant is uncivilised, savage and of sometimes even monstruous. For this reason, the depiction of Derpl Zork is also a representation of this alien and scary side of children. What I just described as animal-like behaviour include the display of the Freudian phenomena such as the Id, the Oedipus complex and the uncontrolable sexual drive. All three are constructed, metaphorically or literally in the behaviour and design of Derpl and will be further explored in the following sections.

An essential part of maturity is the developpement of the full Freudian psychic apparatus : The Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego. The Id was described as the component that explains for the instinctual drive and the Super-Ego is the set of cultural rules, it ''strives to act in socially acceptable manners''. This duality of Id vs Super-ego can be observed in the dialogues of the character. Derpl himself is the child that is fueled by its desires and the id. SUSI is the Super-Ego, she acts to educate Derpl and inform him of the social norms.

For examples, in one of his dialogues, he makes noises with his mouth and saliva. This is clearly a unreasonable, but pleasurable desire. We can associate this desire to the first psychosexual phase: the oral stage. Indeed, accordian to Freud, the first zone in the body to become an an erogenous zone is the mouth. In response, SUSI tells Derpl : "Mr.Zork! that is highly inappropriate." This clearly demonstrates the Super-Ego role of SUSI. The fact that SUSI is a represented as an Artificial Intelligence further enhences her didactic role.

The last stage of the psychosexual developpement is the phallic stage, where the individual discovers the genitals as an erogenous zone. One of the phenomenon for boys in this stage is what Freud described as "The Oedipus complex". It is a set of behaviour that is resumed as a deep hatred of the father and a desire to have intimate relations with the mother figure. It is adequate in the context of the game that Babl Zork is the father figure and SUSI the mother figure.
The tension and hatred with the father figure is clearly present all through out the lore. Babl is said to desire the death of his own heir. The anger of Derpl is also very much noticeable. The desire to kill is very concerning and reflects very well the extreme frustration of Derpl.
We can look at dialogues such as "License to kill approved by management." and "Now, that's a hostile takeover!". Furthermore, the rebellion against the father is also observed in his categorical refusal of fitting in the role of a heir to an empire. He is described as "having the iq below that of a plankton. " As a multicellular organism, that is clearly impossible unless Derpl puposely failed the IQ test to rebel against Babl. However, it is evident that he longs for, somewhere deep inside his mind, to be a father figure, a man, a sexual being, in control of his life. This is seen in the dialogue "You're a Boss, Mr.Zork!" said by SUSI as a congratulation to Derpl.

Derpl also desires to be close to his mother figure. as Bruno Bettelheim wrote: "What child has not wished to sit on Mother's lap, eat from her dish, drink from her glass, and has not climbed into Mother's bed, trying to sleep there with her?" This is especially true for Derpl Zork. He literally sleeps and live with SUSI. Having a symbolic and almost symbiotic relationship with his mother figure, is the peak of the expression of the oedipus complex.

The sexual symbolism is very strong in the design of the character of Derpl. Many phallic objects can be seen on the body. The cat canon/turret gun is the most obvious example. We can say that this duality represents the duality of the male genitalia. Where the cat canon symbolises the unerect phallus and the siege canon, the erect form. The interesting about the latter is that while the gun consists of a phallic object, the whole turret-like body also becomes an erect phallic object like the illustration below.This representations shows that our protagonist is a sexual being with a strong drive.



Biologially an erect apparatus serves the function of reproduction, and therefore, the representation of Derpl's ability draw some interesting parrallels with animal reproduction. Derpl's siege attacks, the nuke and the bullets look very similar to acts of copulation.

Indeed, we cannot ignore the ressemble of the long ranged bullets of derpl's phallic object to the male gametes. The missiles also serve as a metaphor to the "homing" and movement of the sperm cells inside the female body in search of the egg. In this sense, the characters projectile is just a form of his sexual and reproductive urges.


*Thanks for bunnymancer for the picture

A snare followed by a nuke often means death of an enemy. For Derpl, defeating an enemy consist of fertilising them. This is disturbing, but the snare symbolises him capturing his prey and holding it in place. the bullets symbolises his release of gametes and the nuke is the finishing touch: it sigifies that fertilisation has occured. Indeed, the nuke's design looks almost identical to that of a fertilized egg( Zygote) of mammal.


But what about cats?

the cats for derpl are like the carrots for the donkey. It is what makes him move forward. His love for cats is not a literal adoration for the animal, but rather an obsession with the female genitalia. Humans have a very long tradition of associating the femal reproductive organ with this animal.
He is driven forward by his obsession with this body part, he is running after, hunting for what will make him adult.

We can all feel an immense deal of empathy for the character of Derpl Zork because he existed in every single one of us. He is the child that struggled to grow up, he is what we fear would have happened to us or to our children. That is why we play him, we hope that with each moment we spend with him, we can nurture him to adulthood, we want the ugly duckling to become a great swan.

Awesomenauts is a game of great depth and richness and its subtleties are often overlooked. Sometimes, if we are just a bit more careful at examining our own emotions and pay a bit more attention to the world around us. I hope that I gave you the desire to continue playing this game, but a touch more observantly.

Thanks for reading! :)