Thanks so much for playing Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code, the first game in the Elohim Eternal series. The reviews I've gotten have been wonderful, and I'm glad that the story and lore is resonating with players. The game is, first and foremost, about story told in an interactive, turn-based RPG. And like life itself and the human condition - it's a complex story. It's got many, many layers. Because story plays such a huge role in Elohim Eternal, I wanted to talk about theme. Before I plan out a story I always have to know what the theme is – what am I trying to tell the player? What do I want the player to walk away with from the story? Theme is often seen as that kind of boring part of a story, something your grade 12 English teacher wants an essay about on your reading of [i]Macbeth[/i]. But, to me, theme is extremely important, and without it, you don't have a story. But first, what is theme? Theme is basically the life lesson that your main character has to learn (or, in the case of a tragedy, fails to learn). Theme isn't something as simple as "love" or "faith" or "honor". Rather, it's about what[i] this story[/i] is trying to say [i]about[/i] these things, and it usually plays out like an argument in the story. All of the best movies, books, and games have a theme. We as players, viewers, and readers, don't see theme in this way; rather we see theme for the outcome it produces: character transformation. The main character should have an arc in their story, and it’s the theme that is the vehicle for that transformation. [i][u][b]Warning: Spoilers ahead!![/b][/u][/i] So how do we know what the theme is? There's always a theme stated scene, and it's usually a side character (or a minor character) that will state the theme. For Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code, the theme is simply: "Who's the bad guy?" Joshwa will learn who the real "bad guy" is in his story, and learning that will make him question his religious upbringing. Who states the theme? His uncle, Lamech, in a small scene when they are under Mount Sinai. Lamech questions who the Kosmokraters are really for and who they are against. The Jehudans? The Attikans? The Cainites? No, they're against evil. But are they really? [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41609742/be1c2cfed69ed88bb0bfd08d1fbab09316578094.png[/img] Throughout his journey, Joshwa will encounter people and events that will pull and push him from one side to the other (the Cainites are bad; the Cainites are good; the Kosmokraters are lying; the Kosmokraters are the ultimate truth). He'll come to question everyone, including his uncle and his gods. Ultimately, he sees the evil in his world and decides he must fight against, and he knows deep down that what he is doing is right, even though it goes against everything he believed in and everything he was taught. This is his lesson learned, his transformation. His whole worldview changes at the end of Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code. Though I say Lamech is the one who stated the theme, in truth, the theme is stated right at the beginning of the game with the quotation from the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Joshua, which states: "When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, 'Are you for us, or for our adversaries?' And he said, 'No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.'" This is the part of the biblical story where Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan to take the land for Israel, the people of Yahweh. It's an uncomfortable passage because there seems to be evidence of mass genocide. There is a lot of biblical scholarship on why this is not the case (see Michael Heiser's [i]The Unseen Realm[/i] and John T Walton's [i]The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest[/i]), but to summarize it, Joshua and the other Israelites were sent by Yahweh to defeat supernatural evil and remove the gods from the land (albeit, this requires a supernatural worldview which many people today do not have, including, surprisingly, Christians, Jews, and Muslims). What does "evil" mean in this context? It means the giants, the Nephilim, the anakim, the rephaim, etc. In the quotation, Joshua asks whether this figure, the commander of the army of the LORD (evidence suggests that this commander was Jesus—see Daniel Segal's [i]Two Powers in Heaven[/i] and Michael Heiser's [i]The Unseen Realm[/i] and [i]Angels[/i]), if he is for the Israelites or for the Israelites' adversaries, where this commander then turns around and gives a really odd reply. He essentially says, "I'm not here for either of you. I'm here because I am the commander of the LORD, I'm here to remove evil and bring people back into the family of the LORD." Similarly, Joshwa in Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code experiences something similar. He's not going to stop evil for the Kosmokraters, for the Attikans, the Jehudans, or the Cainites. He's here to stop evil for the benefit of all. And there you have it—the theme of Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code (and with some biblical commentary and further reading should you choose to go down that route). I hope the above has deepened your understanding of the game's story, its main character, and its theme. Now that you know what theme is and that every story has a theme stated scene, try to spot the theme stated scene in your favorite movies, shows, books, and story-heavy video games. It's usually stated early, never stated by the main character (usually a minor or side character), and is often, but not always, a kind of musing.